Mary Glindon delivering her speech on 6 February

Mary Glindon, MP for North Tyneside, last week gave a hertfelt address to the all party parliamentary fire safety & rescue group in favour of the use of active fire protection. Here we detail her address to the seminar in full.

 “At the very beginning of 2009, a fire tore through a food manufacturer in Longbenton in my constituency. The business had for many years made frozen foods for Findus. But the damage of the fire that day was so great that the business collapsed shortly thereafter and all the 420 employees lost their jobs.

“The impact on the local community and economy was so severe that significant effort was expended by my predecessor Stephen Byers, the Council, and other local representatives to ensure that the factory could be rebuilt and that business continue on the site. Their efforts were rewarded and within a year a new business took on the property and business and reemployed over 300 of those who had lost their jobs. It seemed that at least something had been literally been salvaged from the fire. But there was also a cost in addition to all the trauma and uncertainly of the previous months: the rebuild and the refitting of the factory was only possible with significant investment including  £3.4 million from the regional development agency One North East. At the time, it was felt that the money was very well spent.

“Around the same time I was elected to represent North Tyneside. By then the factory was up and running and again producing frozen foods. The original fire and the subsequent saving of the jobs with the support of the community was a sufficiently significant event for me to make reference to it in my maiden speech in the House. To me there was was real hope, expectation even, that the factory would now have a long and successful future. It was in a round-about way a good news story.

“But it was not to be. For whatever reason, the new owners soon found themselves in trouble and after less than one year of trading, the new business went into administration. Efforts by myself and others the second time round to maintain a business on the site and to save the jobs were not successful and in March of this year the business closed – and again the employees joined the list of the unemployed.

“What have I learnt from this experience? Certainly I have learnt that the impact of fire – even when thankfully there are no injuries of losses – can be severe and long-lasting. In this case, one fire has resulted in the loss of hundreds of jobs, a huge public expenditure - and all for what? Nothing. The jobs and business lost again. The failure of the second business was not due to the original fire, but the whole process was started by the fire. If it had not happened, the original business would most likely still be doing what it did best.

“And I’ve learnt that the experience in my constituency is not a one-off. Businesses across the country succumb to fire all the time. And the impacts of these fires are equally felt far and wide – sadly sometimes through loss of life, but nearly always through job losses, through loss of business and through real environmental impacts.

“I know that the firemen who bravely tried to fight the Longbenton fire had to use relatively little water to do so – a mere 100,000 litres. Yes of course this is a lot – but it’s much less than is often used. I understand that in some cases, many millions of litres of water are used to douse a single fire. We know this because the Business Sprinkler Alliance – which is represented here today – commissioned Bureau Veritas in 2010 to look at the environmental and community impacts of fire. In Tyneside, we didn’t need a report to detail to us the devastating impact on our local economy of the Longbenton fire but what the Report  has shown is that the impacts of fires in commercial buildings are always felt long after the fires have been put out.

“So what lessons can be learned? It seems to me that the key lesson must be the importance of taking steps to prevent fires starting in the first place or to stop fires at their outset. I am aware that the focus of today’s seminar is sprinkler systems and I am aware that the Bureau Veritas Report was commissioned by the Business Sprinkler Alliance as a means to better inform the public and policy debate about fire safety and fire prevention and to highlight the benefits of sprinkler systems. I am also informed that had the original factory been fitted with a sprinkler system , the fire would have been doused or controlled before the fire brigade arrived. And most likely it would have been business as usual within a few hours of the incident – and of course, I would not need to be standing here talking to you today.

“These facts do focus the mind – and in particular in this case where so much public money was spent to resurrect the lost factory unsuccessfully.

“Fortunately no lives were lost during the fire in Longbenton. But many, many livelihoods have been ruined. I wouldn’t wish our experience upon any other community. In this day an age when there are so many external pressures on business which cannot be controlled, it does seem logical to put in place measures to at least ensure that protection against events which can be controlled.

“I know that many of you here today are campaigning to encourage Government to promote and incentivise business to invest in active fire prevention with sprinkler systems – you can count on my support in your efforts.”