One of Britain’s largest housing associations claims a two-year long safety drive has eradicated fire deaths in its homes.
According to Inside Housing:
Figures seen by Inside Housing show that Glasgow Housing Association, a 42,000-home landlord, has cut the number of accidental fire deaths in its properties from 57 between 2003 and 2011 – an average of six per year – to zero over the past two-and-a-half-years.
GHA believes this reduction in fire deaths is down to its Community Improvement Partnership, rolled out in 2012. Under this partnership, GHA housing officers join forces with Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and Police Scotland to identify tenants whose lifestyles put them at risk of having a fire in their home.
More than 2,000 home fire safety visit referrals have been made by GHA officers to the fire service since June 2011 – which includes fire officers giving advice about smoking and cooking to tenants, and making sure smoke alarms are working.
Gordon Sloan, GHA chair, said: ‘The [Community Improvement Partnership] has helped save the lives of our tenants and prevented numerous other fires in our properties.’
Wheatley Group, GHA’s holding company, is looking at ways to roll out the CIP among other social landlords in the group.
John Thornhill, senior policy officer at the Chartered Institute of Housing, said social landlords had stepped up their efforts to reduce fire deaths since six people died in a fire at the Southwark Council-owned Lakanal House tower block in south London in 2009. He said the tragedy had been a ‘wake-up call’ for the social housing sector.