The London Assembly Fire, Resilience and Emergency Planning Committee submitted a letter in response to the Ministry of Housing, Community and Local Government’s (MHCLG) building safety consultation.
Commenting on the Committee’s response to the consultation, Chair of the Fire, Resilience and Emergency Planning Committee, Andrew Dismore AM, said:
“The work of MHCLG is extremely important to ensure that an incident like Grenfell never happens again. However, the Fire, Resilience and Emergency Planning Committee have repeatedly heard from London Fire Brigade and other fire safety experts that current regulation does not fit reality and therefore puts Londoners at risk.
“The findings of Dame Judith Hackitt’s Independent Review of Building Regulation and Fire Safety made for a hard read and we, as a Committee, know that some buildings do not have the level of safety that they require due to the way they are built and managed. Building safety is not always at the forefront of builders, developers and management companies’ minds and this is simply not acceptable. We need to ensure that legislation clamps down on this to prevent another tragic fire happening again.
“We used the consultation as an opportunity to highlight the London Assembly Planning Committee’s report [1] into the installation of sprinklers in new residential buildings in England. Fitting sprinklers is the next logical step in building safety and in our report, we called on the government, the Mayor of London and the fire safety industries to work together to make this happen and we will continue to do so. New legislation into fire safety is vital for the safety of Londoners and must ensure that new residential buildings are fire safety compliant for years to come.”
Notes to editors
- Never Again: Sprinklers as the next step in fire safety report attached.
- Find out more about the London Assembly Fire, Resilience and Emergency Planning Committee.
- Andrew Dismore AM, Chair of the Fire, Resilience and Emergency Planning Committee, is available for interview.
- As well as investigating issues that matter to Londoners, the London Assembly acts as a check and a balance on the Mayor.
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