ALMO ordered to pay £63k+ in fines and costs after tower block fire
An Arm’s Length Management Organisation (ALMO) in London has been ordered to pay more than £63,000 in fines and costs after a fire in a tower block in which two women died.
His Honour Justice Christopher Hehir said the fine (£40,000) would have been considerably higher had Lewisham Homes been a profit-making company.
The ALMO was prosecuted by the London Fire Brigade under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 after an investigation by the LFB's fire safety officers into the blaze at Marine Tower, Abinger Crescent in Deptford on 4 February 2011.
More than 100 firefighters were called in to tackle the fire, which started on the 16th floor. Two women from another flat were rescued but were pronounced dead at the scene.
The fire had been started deliberately and in 2012 Sandra Clarke, a resident in the flats, was prosecuted and convicted of two counts of manslaughter at Woolwich Crown Court.
HHJ Hehir sentenced Lewisham Homes at Woolwich Crown Court last week (29 January) after the ALMO had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to:
1. failing to properly maintain fire doors (this contributed to the spread of the fire); and
2. failing to review an existing fire risk assessment (carried out in 2008)
The judge said the prosecution should act as a "wake up call", which highlighted the risks of not maintaining fire safety features in residential high rise buildings.
The London Fire Brigade’s Assistant Commissioner for Fire Safety, Neil Orbell, said: "Living in a high rise building is not more dangerous than living in a house but this tragic incident is a stark reminder of the potentially lethal consequences of failing to maintain the vital safety features, such as fire doors, which are built into them to give you protection from fire.
"Sadly in the case of Marine Tower, this life saving engineering was not maintained, causing fire and smoke to spread rapidly into the lobby area and ultimately into a flat where two women, trapped by the fire, tragically died.
"I absolutely agree with the judge. This prosecution should act as a 'wake up call' and send an urgent message to all housing providers to ensure the fire safety features in their buildings are properly maintained.
"If they are not, housing providers, managers, landlords and building owners should all be warned that we will not hesitate to prosecute if we find they are putting people's lives at risk."
A spokesman for Lewisham Homes told the Evening Standard: "In 2011 the actions of a tenant led to the deaths of two people and her subsequent conviction, a tragedy that that touched us all and we deeply regret.
"We accept our failings under the fire safety regulations and take residents safety very seriously. We have been determined to learn lessons and invested heavily year on year to continually improve fire safety, and have made significant progress over the past five years."
