Peterborough City Council is looking at ways of using its existing powers to tighten fire safety in warehouse type buildings, following the fire at the Abbey Produce building in neighbouring Whittlesey which has left 250 people out of work.
A range of measures proposed by the Environment and Community Safety Scrutiny panel which have been drawn up with input from Cambridgeshire’s deputy chief fire officer and building control, will be considered by the council. These include using planning guidance and policy to secure better safety and business continuity; earlier consultation with the fire and rescue service on planning applications; liaising with composite panel manufacturers on panel identifications systems and data; and leading by example by not necessarily just following minimum standards.
The report recognises that a local authority’s powers of imposing fire standards above national guidance are limited, but hopes to influence better measures through indirect means. “The Local Authority competes for business against private sector Building Control Bodies, it says. “An unreasonably rigorous approach by the Council will simply mean that developers pass their work to private building inspectors, who will almost certainly operate to the minimum standard. However there is the ability to ‘lobby’ at national level to press for improvements to building regulations, through Local Authority Building Control.
Councillor Graham Murphy, who is also vice chair of Peterborough and Cambridge Fire Authority, told FSE it was important to encourage local policy to get people to sign up to better standards, and this would hopefully spread to other parts of the country and influence national guidance. “There are three issues here: the safety of the occupants of such buildings, the safety of firefighters who go in to tackle any fire, and the implementation of measures such as sprinklers to help ensure business continuity and environmental sustainability.”
The report is due to be discussed by the council’s cabinet at the end of the month.
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