Posted By Carrie Bye I have been asked to carry out fire safety audits for communal areas belonging to a housing association. These areas consist of stairwells and corridors leading to private flats. The areas are all fire protected, so far as I know. The housing association provide smoke detectors inside all their houses, but are they required to provide anything for the communal areas? Presumably fire reels and extinguishers are open to abuse, and anyway, the source of fire is most likely to be from inside the residences, which the HA have no control over...? Does anyone know what, if anything, should be provided in these communal areas, so far as safety equipment is concerned? I've looked everywhere but can't find the answers I need! thanks Carrie

Posted By shaun mckeever I assume the communal areas will be considered workplaces e.g. cleaners, mainteance staff etc will undertake duties within the communal areas. If that is the case thenyou are required to carry out more than an audit. You are required to carry out a fire risk assessment. With the risk assessment you should be looking at the fire protection of the corridor and confirm the assumption you have made. You are right about what you say regarding the likely area of risk being within the accommodation. You may want to look at what risks there are in the common areas e.g. storage of combustibles, electrical cupboards under stairs and are they locked or used for storage, emergency lighting in the common areas and testing and mainteance regimes that are in place. Personally I would not advocate employing a specialist for this level of fire risk assessment although some on here would. There is enough information abot. Have you looked at the published guidance? They are freely available from the government DCLG website (can't remember the full address).

Posted By J Knight Hi Folks, I've just downloaded the enforcement guidance for the RR(FS)O (see David Bannister's thread below) and this says, with regard to housing; 'Enforcing authorities are encouraged to adopt the 'Protocol between Local Housing Authorities and Fire and Rescue Authorities to improve fire safety'. This was published by CFOA and the CIEH early in 2007'. So I guess you should have a squint at that, John

Posted By J Knight Hi Carrie, I think you probably need to look at the CFOA and CIEH guidance about just this matter, John

Posted By LJ Carrie, I have e-mailed you direct. As Shaun says it is your risk assessment, you are the one who has to decide if the existing precautions are adequate, if not you then make the recommedations. I carry out FRA for a local authority that has Sheltered housing with communal areas, our remit is to assess Alarm/detection/FFE/Evacuation Procedures/staff training etc, this covers corridors etc but not the residents own accomadation. LJ

Posted By Mike Craven The idea that we restrict our fire risk assessments to communal areas only, and do not consider residential areas, is worthy of debate following a meeting I had this morning. We are a housing company and have a number of sheltered housing schemes. One of them is a two-storey block of 13 "bedsits" with communal areas, including entrance hall, corridors, staircases, communal lounge, laundry-room, kitchen, etc. I have carried out fire risk assessments for these communal areas and am happy that we have identified and dealt with risks such as keeping escape routes clear and accessible, maintaining the fire alarm and escape lighting, prohibiting smoking, looking at storage of combustible materials and sources of heat/ignition, providing fire signage, etc, etc, etc! However, because the RRFSO "doesn't apply to residential properties", my risk assessment (rightly or wrongly) stops at the tenants' (half-hour fire resisting, self-closing) front door. However.... I attended a meeting this morning with the local fire brigade, social services and the sheltered housing manager (who is a mobile warden rather than someone who resides on site). The meeting was called because the fire brigade had been called out on a number of occasions due to smoke alarms being set-off when one of our tenants was cooking a meal for himself and his neighbour. The services of the brigade were not required but, because the smoke alarms are linked to a monitoring station, the brigade is called out automatically. The simple solution might be to remove/resite the smoke alarms, or to replace smoke alarms with heat detectors, or to change our monitoring and call out procedures. (We have all burnt the toast or cooked with too much fat and set-off the smoke alarms, but we just turn off the alarm, waft the smoke away, and don't get a visit from the fire fighters!) However, the tenant who is "causing the problem" - whilst being apparently quite able, both physically and mentally - is seemingly oblivious/uncaring to the fact that there is a problem. Furthermore, on further investigation, it seems that his habits and lifestyle - ie WHAT GOES ON BEHIND HIS FRONT DOOR - may be putting the safety of himself and others at risk. For example, I understand that his housekeeping leaves a lot to be desired - although he may think it to be acceptable - he will dry clothes over a parafin/calor gas heater, he uses a chip pan, likes to fry food, and allows his grill pan to become thick with fat. He has never been known to Social Services and, as the social services representative said, they cannot force services upon him. (During the meeting, social services did speak with him and were, almost literally, told where they could put the meals on wheels service!!!) Of course, if we can't resolve this matter, the ultimate sanction would be eviction - but no-one wants that. Anyway, after this long-winded tale, I will get to the point (at last!). It was suggested to me by the fire brigade that, although I might be correct in my view that the law does not extend to residential properties, if we don't give any such consideration and potentially allow a tenant to effectively put himself and other residents at risk, we are failing to properly manage fire safety! I cannot disagree but we only know about this problem because of the "false alarms" to the fire brigade. The sheltered housing scheme isn't a high dependency/care scheme, the tenant wasn't known to social services, he appears to be quite "capable" and he is fiercely independent, not usually allowing anyone into his flat!! Mike

Posted By Carrie Bye Thank you for all the advice posted on here - I certainly feel more confident about what I am going to do. The issue of fire safety in private residences is certainly a thorny one, though very relevant when you have many people living in a building with shared access. I know the housing association has a similar problem with smoke alarms being set off, but are unable to stop imbedded lifestyle practices. Eviction is hardly ever used as a punishment. I now have a few documents I have downloaded, which I can refer to, so thanks everyone for pointing me in the right direction.

Posted By PETER GANNAWAY You have an obligation to maintain safety in common areas which includes fire routes. Checking that door closers that exit onto the fire route should also be considered. It is not unheard of for residents or families to disable or weaken these so they don't shut properly. This would allow smoke to enter the fire route causing a problem for all. We check all such doors weekly in sheltered schemes, and are looking at getting Gas service engineers to make the door shuts behind them when conducting annual gas safety checks in general needs housing. Also remember you have a duty to ensure all people can be safely evacuated, and that there are no structural impediments to this. For sheltered schemes this will mean creating Personal Emergency Emergency Evacuation Plans, we also extend this to General needs where we are made aware of an issue. Problem with this is that DDA is about getting people into a building, and FSO is about about getting people to safety ASAP. Sometimes the best solution is to restrict access in the first place.