Magistrates fine Lancaster Council and Adactus after fire service prosecution
Failure to assess fire risk cost council £5,728
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Lancaster Council has been fined £3,000 for failing to carry out a proper fire risk assessment on one of its properties.
Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service took the local authority to court following the blaze on the ground floor of a three-storey block
The case comes in the week that a series of freedom of information requests made by Inside Housing revealed that 282 blocks of four or more storeys across England had not received formal fire risk assessments before 3 July this year. That is the date a blaze killed six people in a Southwark Council tower block, Lakanal House.
The Lancaster Council case came after two residents escaped and another was rescued uninjured from flats in a three-storey building in the Morecambe area in March last year.
Fire crews investigating the blaze found a fire alarm system was not working, fire doors were not self-closing or fitted with smoke seals, a fire exit door was not fitted with an appropriate lock and no FRA had been carried out under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.
All landlords have a duty to carry out FRAs under this regulation.
The council pleaded guilty to four charges including failing to carry out a fire risk assessment, failing to maintain a fire alarm in working order, failing to provide suitable fire separation and not putting appropriate fastening on a final exit door.
The property was managed for the council by Adactus Housing Group, which also pleaded guilty to the first two charges.
Lancaster Magistrates’ Court fined the local authority £3,000 and Adactus £2,000 earlier this month. They were also ordered to pay £2,728 and £1,818 court costs, respectively.
John Taylor, a spokesperson for Lancashire Fire and Rescue, said: ‘We are more than willing to help landlords comply with the order but it does illustrate that we are willing to take councils to court. We will not show favour to public sector [above] private sector. We take our responsibility seriously.’
Heather McManus, corporate director (regeneration) at Lancaster Council, said: ‘We fully accept that there were failings in the management agreement and lessons have now been learned.’
Adactus did not wish to comment.
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 (9)
kass | 23/10/2009 11:42 am
iIsn't that great?... the council now will pass on the fine on the tenants. And the very tenants put at risk by the landlord or could have died because the landlord did not do their duty will end up paying the fine. As well as going on paying the salaries of the professionals who did not do their job... Until we have prosecutions for these offences there will never be justice for tenants but just more injustices and more victims.
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kass | 23/10/2009 12:59 pm
by prosecutions I mean individual prosecutions of CEO's or managers or personally those charged with these duties and failing to carry them out.
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karen | 23/10/2009 1:35 pm
Surely its the taxpayer who is paying the fine...
Unless they really are upping rent just to pay for the fine which I imagine would be social housing suicide.
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kass | 23/10/2009 2:30 pm
karen | Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:35 GMT
so you are a professional in social housing and you don't know that rather put up rents the landlord will find far ewasier to recover the fine money by cutting off some service to the tenants?... The first ones to be directly hit will be their very victims (tenants) in the first place as well as the taxpayer at large.
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Janet Yatak | 23/10/2009 3:34 pm
It is interesting that Adactus did not want to comment wonder why, surely they would have issued a statement about this immediately to it's residents, even if it was a load of codswallop. It also shows that they have probably not held anyone to account for it , sacked anyone or read anyone the riot act, Some one has broken the law and committed a criminal offence as the fine shows, so someone should be punished, and whoever it was should also pay the fine out of their own money and not use the tax payer to do it.
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Melvin Bone | 23/10/2009 3:41 pm
It will not be in the rent.
The tenants will pay it but probably from general taxation and council tax.
So we will all end up paying a bit.
Legally I'm not sure if you can take criminal action against an individual for a 'Corporate Crime' of this nature.
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Peter | 23/10/2009 3:45 pm
I wonder whether the London Fire and Rescue are going to pursue Southwark Council through the same legal process? Will a corporate manslaughter charge be pursued by the Met. police ?
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kass | 23/10/2009 6:07 pm
Peter | Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:45 GMT
It will be only if there is pressure to do so... But who is going to pressure them with enough clout to force them?... Maybe tenants affected should unite and bring employ a laywer and bring charges themselves both against the council as well as against the police (if they refuse to take action).
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Karen | 23/10/2009 6:27 pm
That's amusingly misguided to think that they recoup by dropping services. Of course they'll do it in tax.
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