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London council pumps extra £17m into fire safety
A north London council has decided to spend an additional £16.9m on fire safety work in its housing stock.
Barnet Council, which manages its 10,000 homes through an ALMO, will spend the extra money on sprinklers, fire door replacements and fire detection systems.
The money is accompanied by £5m in grant from the government’s aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding fund, which will cover the cost of completed remediation work on three blocks in Childs Hill.
The government set aside £400m to pay for the replacement of ACM on social housing blocks.
The additional money was agreed by the Conservative authority’s housing committee on Monday evening and brings the council’s total post-Grenfell fire safety spend to £51.9m.
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Inside Housing understands that the removal of the Housing Revenue Account borrowing cap has helped Barnet Council to accommodate the extra fire safety spending.
Gabriel Rozenberg, chair of the Barnet Council housing committee, said: “We are spending millions to strengthen fire safety across the borough. We will not take risks with the lives of our residents.
“We are expanding our programme of works to give residents that extra peace of mind when it comes to the safety of their own homes.
“Residents can rest assured that we will do everything we can to keep them safe in their homes.”
The council previously opted to install sprinklers in its blocks of 10 storeys or taller with a single stairwell, but through the new funding will expand the retrofit to include blocks of similar height with more than one stairwell.
