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The Residential Landlords Association is claiming a partial victory after the publication of a briefing note on fire safety guidance for the private rental housing sector.
The original LACORS guidance – which marked the first attempt to provide a unified, national set of guidance for private landlords who are subject to both the Housing Act and the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order – was originally published last summer. But following feedback from landlords and enforcement agencies, LACORS has issued what it describes as clarification of a number of provisions in the guidance.
Among the issues clarified are:
- Definitions of ‘low and ‘high’ risk are not included in the guidance, as risk is a relative concept influenced by a wide ranger of factors.
- Where fire prosecutions are required, they must be necessary and appropriate and based on an assessment of the risk presented.
- There is a distinction between certain types of shared house and bedsit-style HMOs (houses in multiple occupation). In small, lower risk properties, sound conventional construction and doors may provide an adequate level of fire separation, though would not meet the ideal standard of a 30 minute protected escape route.
- Placing portable fire extinguishers in communal areas is deemed appropriate in order to help occupiers deal with small scale fires in their early stages, and to aid their escape from the building.
- It is important to view the guidance as a whole and to appreciate that it does not set down any prescriptive requirements. In particular, the case studies in part D of the guidance should be viewed as examples only, and put into the context of the general principles of fire risk reduction set out in part C.
The briefing note concludes that it is not intended to overrule or contradict anything contained in the national fire safety guidance, and that it simply provides additional clarification on a few specific issues.
The clarification was agreed by the project steering group which includes representatives from LACORS, the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, the Chief Fire Officers Association, the National HMO Network, the National Landlord Association, and the Communities and Local Government department.
“It’s very pleasing that the thrust of our representation on these issues have now been accepted,” said an RLA spokesman. “The only annoying thing is the length of time it has taken, when many landlords will already have done work to comply with the original guidelines.”