Impossible to accurately say how many UK residential buildings contain complete fire safety records

Joule Group, a leading fire safety engineering consultancy, reports that currently it is not possible to accurately determine how many residential buildings have complete and accurate fire safety records.

This presents a significant opportunity for the fire safety industry to transform how fire safety information is created, stored and maintained in over 5,080,000 flats/apartments across England alone.

With new regulations due to come into force through the Building Safety Bill it means that a huge number of building operators will need to focus sharply on their fire safety compliance, and how they have been managing fire safety throughout their building stock.

Interruptions in the fire safety record do occur. For example, with paper-based systems information is often lost, mistakes are made when recording data and never corrected; or when buildings are transferred between owners or managers and systems. Digital reform presents a unique and significant opportunity to impart real change and significant benefit in the management of fire safety in buildings.

John Noone, a Director of Joule Group, says: ‘The point to make is not that everyone who lives in one of these accommodation blocks is in imminent danger – but that it is hard to say what their risk levels might be. 

‘We have the capacity as an industry to greatly improve fire safety for hundreds of thousands of people. Properly maintained fire safety records will mean that each resident can be confident of their level of risk.

‘Technological developments mean that it is possible to move to real-time fire safety monitoring and it is certainly a step the industry should be taking.’