Keeping customers safe in their homes
Our priority is, and always has been, the safety of our customers – whether they are tenants, shared owners or leaseholders. All our buildings have current fire risk assessments and we are confident that everyone is safe in their homes.
Our ongoing building safety programme helps us keep up with current fire safety guidance and laws. This means carrying out intrusive fire risk assessments and external wall inspections at some of our buildings and, where problems are found, undertaking remedial safety work.
Evacuation procedure
If your building’s evacuation strategy has changed from ‘stay put’ to ‘simulataneous evacuation’ then you should make sure you know your nearest escape route(s) and your assembly point (details are posted in communal areas of your building), and read this information carefully.
If you discover a fire
- Raise the alarm
- Call 999
- Leave the building.
If the alarm sounds
- Leave the building via your nearest safe escape route – don’t use the lifts
- The fire marshals will check for false alarms and silence the system if that’s the case
- If there is a fire, or it can’t be confirmed, then the marshals will call 999 and begin evacuating the building, helping any vulnerable residents
- The marshals will sound air horns, even if the alarm is going off, to alert residents
- Once the building is evacuated, a marshal will stay at the entrance to prevent anyone re-entering the building – the other marshals will go to the assembly point to meet residents.
Once you've evacuated
- Once outside the building, you must go to the assembly point, where marshals will do a roll call to check everyone has evacuated safely
- Marshals will also ask if you know if anyone is still in the building
- If any “missing persons” are identified, a marshal will re-enter and check the building, but only when it is safe to do so. Otherwise, they will let the fire brigade know when it arrives.
When the fire brigade arrives
- Stay at the assembly point
- The fire marshals will liaise with the fire brigade about the location of the fire, access points, main services cut offs, risers and anyone unaccounted for from the roll call.
Returning to your homes
- Residents will only be allowed to return to their homes when the fire brigade and fire marshals tell them it is safe to do so.
