Newham Council threatening new front doors!

Newham Council threatening new front doors!

9:05 AM, 20th September 2017, About 7 years ago 9

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Newham Council sending letters to all leaseholders of ex-council flats asking to provide the fire safety certificates or replace front doors to FD30 certified front Doors.

They have identified ( no survey was carried out ) that current door doesn’t meet current fire regulations and funny enough my one bed flat front door was installed by the Newham council. (its 44mm solid wood door with fire & smoke seals fire lock, and overhead door closers).

Has anyone else been sent this letter and what are you doing about it?

Many thanks

Sohail


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Comments

terry sullivan

9:26 AM, 20th September 2017, About 7 years ago

ask the fire brigade?

Ross Tulloch

9:46 AM, 20th September 2017, About 7 years ago

In your case the rightly worded letter may do as they installed it. Presumably only needed for blocks of flats?? Who and how would it be certified if it was a fire door but without such a certificate?

TheMaluka

10:16 AM, 20th September 2017, About 7 years ago

Ignore the letter until the council has done a survey on YOUR door. This is Newham taking the easy option without any due diligence.

Sohail Akram

11:08 AM, 20th September 2017, About 7 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Ross Tulloch at 20/09/2017 - 09:46
Thank you for your quick response. Well similar doors with same specs are still online as Fire doors. Yes it’s a small block of flats over two floors (9 flats in total ). All internal doors are fire doors and has mians connected two Smoke / heat alarms.

Question Everything

11:37 AM, 20th September 2017, About 7 years ago

As it seems with all Councils' efforts to regulate the PRS, they see the effort and time and money put in to actually coming up with proper data too much for them. They are used to just rolling out a new directives at their will and expecting no comeuppance. Their staff are usually less than skilled at having logical discussion about gaps in their systems and too job fearing to stand up against injustice.

The only answer so far as I see is for us to continue to collaborate on forums like this so our knowledge and experience is pooled to defend ourselves against their tyranny. (Is that too intense?) However blandly one might put it, that is the situation.

Paul Shears

13:12 PM, 20th September 2017, About 7 years ago

There is a force in this life that is a completely natural phenomenon and it is as real as gravity.
I refer to being “dumb and irresponsible”.
There is absolutely no cure for this.
With enormous effort, you can win a battle but you can never with the war.

This is yet another utterly dumb over reaction by process following zombies in response to the recent tower block disaster.
Oh heaven forbid that they may no longer be able to hide behind collective responsibility and be confronted with the consequences of poor judgement directly.
The root cause of all those horrendous deaths was not the combustible material etc.
It was the dumb and irresponsible process following idiots who are utterly devoid of the very basis of modern civilization - reason and evidence.
A low brow morality is a burden to the world.
Council budgets are being continually cut because society at large places an increasing lower value on the contribution that these council and other public sector idiots make.

Mandy Thomson

13:21 PM, 20th September 2017, About 7 years ago

This is something I only learned recently after consulting with the Fire Industry Association.
Newham are acting under The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which, in the case of leasehold flats, places a duty on the freeholder or the building manager ("the responsible person") to carry out a fire risk assessment of the common areas each year; to carry out any modifications mandated by the report, and to ensure that the leaseholders and occupiers also comply with this.
In the case of fire doors, this would mean the freeholder not only has the right, but a duty to ensure all leaseholders comply.
Whether this means the freeholder fitting and paying for the doors, or the leaseholders, will depend on the lease, but the bottom line is the building must be made safe, even where this impacts on the individual leasehold units.
Depending on the size and layout of the building, a possible alternative to a fire door might be an fire alarm system which is interlinked with all the flats, though I suspect the fire doors might be the more practical option of the two.
I would ask Newham for a copy of the most recent fire risk assessment of the common areas (which they must do yearly by law). I would also ask the Fire Brigade to carry out a (free) fire risk assessment of your flat (as I've stated previously, this is not compulsory for a single occupancy dwelling) - obviously, ask them about the door and its frame in particular. Some existing doors are robust enough to comply with FD30 (door stops fire for at least 30 minutes). You will then be in a position to negotiate with Newham if your door is already compliant or there's a more cost effective alternative to replacing the door.

Paul Shears

21:13 PM, 20th September 2017, About 7 years ago

" Newham are acting under The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005"

I rest my case.
Of course this has absolutely no connection whatsoever with recent political embarrassment, a couple of resignations and a nationwide social disaster.
It's just pure coincidence that Newham council has taken 12 years to notice.

John Frith

12:27 PM, 21st September 2017, About 7 years ago

See this article in the Newham Recorder. Apparently the council have admitted it was a mistake.

http://www.newhamrecorder.co.uk/news/newham-council-mistakenly-tells-thousands-of-leaseholders-to-replace-front-doors-within-28-days-1-5201078

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