COVER STORY
KEEPING PACE WITH CHANGE In December 2018, the government announced detailed plans to strengthen the regulatory framework for building safety, following Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety, in response to the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower in 2017. The plans promise tougher and more rigorous regulations that will improve accountability, oversight and safety in high rise buildings.
This scrutiny of safety – not just in residential high-rises but in all multi-storey buildings – is very timely and has the potential to protect occupants of existing, new and refurbished buildings throughout the UK, whatever their use.
The government will be consulting on the scope of the new regime and whether it should go further to include other multi-occupied residential buildings where a significant fire or structural failure could put many people’s lives at risk.
It will also be seeking views on proposals for creating duty holder responsibilities that will set out, in law, who owns and needs to manage building safety risks at different stages of a build-ing’s lifecycle. This will create a stronger and more effective enforcement and sanctions regime as well as making fire and rescue authorities, statutory consultees in the planning process for multi-occupied residential buildings of 30 metres/10 storeys or more.
This focus on building safety provides a much-needed opportunity to focus on evacuation and how it must evolve to meet changing risks and the changing needs of building users.
MADE IN THE MIDLANDS The Midlands is currently undergoing a period of unprecedented change – evidenced by its prolific development of its built environment. It currently employs more people within the manufacturing sector than any other region across the UK and is worth £17.5bn.
Recently, Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce announced Evac+Chair as a finalist for its ‘Excellence in Manufacturing’ awards. This recognises Evac+Chair’s commitment to strengthening its manufacturing capabilities in the Midlands and the
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continued investment into people and the high quality of its product range.
“It is good to support a British company and Evac+Chair has the best products on the market – the build quality is very important and we know the equipment is robust,” said Andy Beckett, Risk Consultant at Nationwide Group and customer of Evac+Chair. “I’ve actually seen the chairs being made at the Evac+Chair factory in Birmingham.
“With the honesty and integrity displayed by the people at Evac+Chair, we don’t need to look at other suppliers.”
As a business, Evac+Chair is continually innovating and is already looking at extending its ranges to meet the demanding safety requirements, e.g. airlines as they work to meet the needs of the mobility-impaired and passengers with other disabilities.
Evac+Chair’s accomplished R&D team has recently been strengthened with Stephen Ellis’ appointment as technical director. He has helped to drive Evac+Chair’s ambitious plans to broaden and enhance their range of life-saving products building on his experience in the automotive sector.
“Together with the R&D team at Evac+Chair, I will be looking at what products we can develop by 2020 and then 2030 and beyond. Part of that process will be listening to our customers to make sure we continue to design and develop great products which will meet their needs, now and in the future,” said Stephen Ellis.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE When the founders of Evac+Chair established manufacturing in the 1980s, it was producing hundreds of chairs a year, mainly for the public sector. Now, over 30 years later, Evac+Chairs are being produced in their thousands and can be found in schools and colleges, tower blocks, football stadiums, shopping centres, hotels, museums and libraries providing safe evacuation equipment for everyone all around the world.
Managing Director, Gerard Wallace stated: “Our ambition is to ensure that the safe evacua-tion of the mobility- impaired from public and commercial buildings is high on the agenda of all future planning of health and safety in buildings, not just in the UK, but worldwide.”
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