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Current affairs


residents, who remained in their homes throughout the retrofitting programme. The sprinkler installation was carried out at a cost of £1,150 per flat, while the cost of annual maintenance has been £400 per year for the entire block. The combined cost of installation and maintenance provides an annualised cost per flat of £40 over a 30 year timeframe. The Callow Mount retrofit project proved


conclusively that it is possible to retrofit sprinklers into an existing high rise block without having to evacuate and relocate the tenants. Sheffield Council is using the learning from this pilot to retrofit sprinklers in about 540 low rise, timber frame, ranch style maisonettes. As a result of the project, a number of housing authorities and associations have installed sprinklers in an increasing number of high and low rise social housing schemes.


Sprinklers needed


Retrofitting should not be restricted to high rise and low rise social housing. Two devastating fires in 2019, one at a Premier Inn near Bristol and another at the Beechmere care home in Crewe, along with a major fire in 2018 at the newly refurbished Nottingham Station, have brought into sharp focus the vulnerability of unsprinklered buildings. The fire that occurred at the Premier Inn in Cribbs Causeway near Bristol on the afternoon


of 17 July 2019 spread across all four floors of the building. Thankfully all hotel guests and residents were evacuated safely, but the unsprinklered building was completely destroyed. In addition to the loss of business and the disruption across the local community, the fire caused the evacuation of nearby residents and road closures. At the Beechmere care home three weeks


later, 16 fire appliances and more than 70 firefighters attended a blaze which started in the roof but completely destroyed the timber framed complex. The building contained no sprinklers, and if the incident commander had not overruled the stay put policy and ordered a full and immediate evacuation of all 150 residents, the outcome would have had very different and potentially tragic consequences. Technically, the building should have had compartmentation, but clearly did not. Lee Shears, head of protection at Cheshire


Fire and Rescue Service, commented on the decision to evacuate that saved lives, saying: ‘It’s clear that the fire wasn’t behaving in the way that we would expect, and I must praise the swift and decisive actions in ordering the immediate evacuation of residents.’ This fire also raises a question about the


number of similar situations across the country in which elderly people, many of whom need assistance, are housed in unsprinklered buildings. In early 2018, a serious fire engulfed Nottingham


FOCUS


www.frmjournal.com JULY/AUGUST 2020


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