Draft London Safety Plan 2010/2013 - Fire Brigades Union London

SECTION 3 – WHAT WE
PLAN TO DO
PREVENTION, PROTECTION
AND RESPONSE
Prevention and protection are our key aims but we also
need to be able to respond if an incident does occur. We
believe it is important to focus our efforts on community
safety activities, including those we undertake in
partnership with others.
Using sophisticated technology we can identify where
fires are most likely to happen and so target those that are
most at risk from fire. If we can make buildings safer
through our regulatory fire safety work and by
encouraging the use of fire engineering solutions and
sprinklers, we will need to send fewer fire engines to
incidents.
However we also need to maintain an adequate level of
response to protect London and Londoners and visitors
when incidents occur. We continually review whether our
current levels of response are necessary and that work will
continue into the future. While we continue to have the
current levels of emergency response, we make
arrangements so that when crews are not attending
incidents they are promoting our fire safety message
instead. Over the life of this plan, we will also look at how
we crew certain appliances and stations. Other fire and
rescue services routinely use alternate crewing
arrangements (this is when we use a pumping appliance
crew to crew a special appliance when that special
appliance is needed to attend an incident) and although
there is some limited use of this in London already , there
may be good reason to use more of it in the future.
PROTECTING LONDONERS
As the fire and rescue authority for London it is our
responsibility to ensure that those held responsible in law
comply with fire safety regulations. Fire safety regulation
means much more than just enforcing fire safety laws. It
also means seeking to influence those responsible for
making the laws and designing buildings so that as far as
possible fire safety measures, such as sprinklers, are
installed in buildings where the risk justifies it. While we
provide a wide range of responsive services to ensure the
safety of Londoners from fire and other emergencies we
know from our experience that the most effective way to
ensure the safety and well being of all Londoners is
through the work we carry out in the areas of community
safety and fire safety regulation. It also means providing
advice and guidance to the business community on how
they can comply with the law and also giving general fire
safety advice.
We have a well-established record of delivering public fire
safety advice and education to Londoners going back
many years and this has seen significant reductions in the
number of accidental fire injuries and deaths in the capital
on a year on year basis. Our responsibilities as the
enforcing authority for fire regulations in the capital and
our responsibilities to educate and inform have seen us
contact and work with all sectors of business and industry
to ensure they not only understand their responsibilities
under current fire safety legislation both to their staff and
the public but also that they understand the economic
benefits both for them and the community by having in
place good fire safety management systems.
The recent tragic fire in Camberwell has focused attention
on a number of specific areas and we are committed to
ensuring that the lessons available from such a tragic
event are communicated to all sectors of the community
and that they are acted on. The need to ensure that well
maintained and managed fire safety systems are in place
in all premises as well as giving clear fire safety advice to
occupants is of paramount importance. We will ensure we
continue to play our part in providing leadership and
guidance in this area and work to achieve better fire safety
standards nationally.
OPERATIONAL IMPROVEMENTS
There are no proposals that would affect the number or
location of our fire engines.
However, since 2001, there has been a huge increase in
the number of our specialist vehicles, including those
which the government has provided for national
emergencies. We now have 82 specialist items covering
12 different types of appliance. These include high
volume pumping appliances which we use in the event of
serious floods and our incident response units which can
be used when large numbers of people have been
contaminated in, say, a chemical incident. Some of these
vehicles are crewed permanently and some are ‘alternate
crewed’ where our staff are available to crew more than
one vehicle. The introduction of these appliances also
involved developing and maintaining new skills and we
are looking to rationalise the way we manage and group
the availability of some specialist appliances and skills.
Proposal One: The first group we intend to establish
would be called bulk extinguishing materials centres, and
would be based at Harrow (subject to further detailed
consideration), Kingston, Beckenham and Barking fire
stations. Each would group pump ladders, (which are
already there), bulk foam units and hose layer lorries and
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