Safety battle reaches Commons as Southwark clashes with leaseholders
MPs’ support for campaign
A high-profile MP has launched a parliamentary motion in support of Inside Housing’s Safe as Houses campaign. Karen Buck, Labour MP for Regent’s Park & Kensington North and a well-known campaigner on housing issues, has called for the government to work with housing associations and builders to achieve the campaign’s aims.
She writes in the early day motion that Inside Housing should be ‘congratulated’ for raising awareness about housing safety standards and sets out the three main demands of the campaign: carbon monoxide alarms in all new homes with gas appliances; emergency procedure notices in all corridors in high-rise blocks; and a national database of tower blocks with up to date information about fire risk assessments.
Ms Buck said: ‘We need to get back to basics in terms of remembering the safety of people in their own homes is the single prominent duty of landlords and housing providers.’ Eighteen MPs have signed the motion so far.
The campaign launched after the deaths of six people in a fire in Lakanal House, Camberwell, on 3 July and the death of 26-year-old Elouise Littlewood, from carbon monoxide poisoning, in her new build flat February last year.
This week, leaseholders from another Southwark tower block, Perronet House, launched a bid to challenge bills for work on their block following the fire.
Shortly after the fire the council was issued with enforcement notices on three of its other blocks, including Perronet. Perronet’s leaseholders claim improvement work costs more than they were originally told and that some of it is more than required in the enforcement notices, such as rewiring the building.
The council claims the work is necessary and will cost more if it waits. The tribunal is likely to make a decision in the next couple of weeks.
Inside Housing is running a campaign calling for action to stop preventable deaths from gas and fire. For more on this see our Safe as Houses campaign page.
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Readers' comments (1)
Stephanie Trotter | 22/11/2009 12:10 pm
Congratulations to Karen Buck MP and to Inside Housing. However there are still two main problems which Colin Breed MP put in his EDM in 2007. He received the support of 121 MPs yet nothing was done by Government. The two problems are:-
1. There is a lack of awareness of the dangers of carbon monoxide (CO) and a lack of research.
2. The Gas Emergency Service although having a duty to 'make safe' from CO, has no equipment to test appliances for this deadly gas which cannot be sensed using human senses.
The Health and Safety Commission, in 2000, made two recommendations which would have cured these problems.
1. A levy on the gas suppliers to pay for raising awareness and for research and
2. That the Gas Emergency Service carry and use equipment to test appliances for CO.
There is no free or available test for CO so how can people be made safe? This is an utter scandal.
Stephanie Trotter CO-Gas Safety www.co-gassafety.co.uk
Email office@co-gassafety.co.uk Tel. 01372 466135
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