BROADACRES’ FIRE SAFETY HAILED AS THE BENCHMARK

Broadacres has been held up as the “benchmark” for fire safety following a significant investment of over £1.5 million in homes.

Over the past few years, Broadacres has been undertaking fire safety work on all its housing schemes, such as extra care and sheltered housing, and at properties with communal areas and entrances. 

Following fire risk assessments carried out on Broadacres’ homes by fire safety specialists The Oakleaf Group, and inspections undertaken in partnership with the North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, Broadacres have so far invested over £1.5million to ensure its buildings meet the highest standards of health and safety.

The work is a wide-ranging review covering fire doors to emergency lighting through to fire compartmentation. Compartmentation is key as it shows how well a property can prevent the rapid spread of smoke and fire for the required period of time.

Fire Consultant for The Oakleaf Group, Nigel Stafford-Fix said: “The buildings we inspected on behalf of Broadacres are among the best I have seen for fire safety management and protection, and we are now using these as the benchmark in the social housing sector.”

Elaine Walters, Compliance Officer at Broadacres, said: “Since the Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017, the social housing sector, rightfully, has been put under the spotlight when it comes to fire safety.

“We have been extremely proactive in our approach to fire safety management and are ahead of the game in terms of actioning the recommendations in the Hackett Report and the new Fire Safety Act.

“All our fire doors have been maintained prior to any formal legislation and the continued upkeep and maintenance is second to none. We now carry out annual inspections of all our fire doors and have already seen 469 state-of-the art fire safety doors being fitted at our schemes and communal properties.

“The investment in this area is significant but you can’t put a price on safety as far as we are concerned.”

Broadacres has obtained its own fire safety accreditations and is a member of the national BM Trada Q-Mark Fire Door Installation and Maintenance Scheme. This is designed to provide further reassurance to customers, staff and other building users that the fire door has been installed and maintained correctly and that it should perform correctly.”