Residents have been left fuming after being handed an ‘astronomical’ bill for fire safety measures, of which just the admin costs run into more than £56,000 - two days before Christmas.

A total of 240 HMO blocks in Carlisle are to have their communal areas fitted with alarms, emergency lighting and other fire safety measures after building managers the Riverside Association agreed the works.

However, works were not agreed as a result of an enforcement action, but were decided after a number of off-site recommendations made by Carlisle Fire and Rescue Service.

It followed a fire that devastated a block of flats managed by the housing association in 2009.

A later inspection of the block, in Melbourne Road, revealed lighting, alarms and maintenance to be insubstantial, among other breaches of the Fire Safety Order (FSO).  Riverside was subsequently handed an enforcement notice in June the same year. There was no fine levied.

Housing association doing 'all it can' to comply with FSO

It was this that led Riverside to seek advice about its other properties and while the flats have not been served with enforcement notices, the fire service has said that the association is doing “all it can to comply with the FSO”.

Stuart Graham, crew manager for fire protection at the fire service who has been involved in the consultation with Riverside, said: “I feel sympathy for the residents being hit with a bill just before Christmas, but the Riverside Association is doing all it can to comply with the FSO.

“The fire service's point of view is one of it's better to place people in a place of safety than in harm's way. It is better to be safe than sorry.”

He added: “It is a grey area. Whereas the landlord is responsible for communal areas, if hypothetically, a fire was to spread from a flat into a communal area because there was no fire door installed in that flat, then the resulting damage could be down to the resident if they refuse to allow remedial works to be carried out.”

However the residents, 141 private lease-holders in total, say they are happy to pay some cost for safety measures, but argue that the prices quoted for works is exorbitant and that they should have been given the opportunity to choose their own contractor.

As info4fire understands it, some of the costs have been absorbed into regular payments agreed under an existing contract with Riverside - but some works, have been classified as outside the agreement.

Astronomic costs

Liberal Democrat councillor Nan Farmer, who is also a resident of a Riverside property, told info4fire: “[Residents] are prepared to pay a reasonable amount but not the astronomic amounts being asked for by Riverside.

“Riverside have taken it on themselves to do this to all flats, I should add without any consultations with leaseholders. The first they knew about the costs being levied against them was when the bills were delivered two days before Christmas. Most are old age pensioners”, she said.

One flat’s bill came to the total of £4,240.39. It included £1,172.96 for an emergency lighting and fire detection system and £593.60 for a fire partition to a loft void. There was an admin charge of £321. 24.

“We have never been offered the opportunity to have our own contractor,” councillor Farmer told info4fire. “We have, in fact, been told that we are not allowed to use our own contractors.

“Every single leaseholder has been charged up to £350 in admin costs. The total is roughly £56,000,” she added.

Contract 'conducted under an existing agreement' by approved contractor

A spokesman from Riverside said that the contract was conducted under the Official Journal of the European Community procurement rules and that “in order to save both time and costs” in undergoing a separate tender process, it was taken using an existing agreement by Fusion 21 - which sourced building services company, Top Notch.

Private lease-holders have also been offered the opportunity to retrospectively stagger their payments to the Housing Association over a period of 15 years, the company said.

But the situation has led to a stalemate, with residents saying they are taking a line of ‘no cooperation’ with the housing association.

The company plan to have works completed by March 2012, with an outside limit set by the fire service for December 2012.

Reasonable to charge for previous fire safety failings?

Riverside’s properties are made up of more than 20 different archetypes including flats, maisonettes and terrace houses. 

Build dates for the properties vary widely from 1918 through to the 1970s, the association said.

Earlier this month, in an unrelated story titled: ‘Residential landlords - profiteering or genuine fire safety upgrades?’ David Sugden, chair of the Passive Fire Protection Federation,  asked whether it was reasonable for building owners to charge the cost of previous fire safety failings to tenants as ‘improvements’ to fire safety.
 

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