Essex County Fire and Rescue Service (ECFRS) have issued a prohibition notice relating to Redstone House
A former office block in Harlow, Essex that has been converted into residential accommodation was evacuated on 7 May after ECFRS found “significant issues within the building”, with 23 families given just 24 hours’ notice to leave and move into temporary accommodation.
Confirming the evacuation in a statement, James Taylor, Assistant Chief Fire Officer for ECFRS said: “We have issued a prohibition notice against Redstone House, Harlow. This means the owners for the building must ask residents to evacuate the building immediately as we believe there is a threat to life related to fire safety.”
“In this instance we are clear that the property does not meet fire regulations. Specifically, the Service believes if there was a fire in the building there is potential this would remain undetected and pose significant risk to those living in the building. This would mean residents would not be able to evacuate quickly and safely and which would put residents at a higher risk of serious injury or death.
“It would therefore have been highly irresponsible for our Service not to immediately prohibit the use of the building.”
The owners of the property, Dunlap Property Solutions, had been informed that fire safety improvements were necessary back in early 2024. Speaking to BBC News, Dan Wastell of ECFRS explained that the building had issues that increased the potential for fire spread in the event of an incident and lacked a suitable and sufficient fire alarm.
As a result of this, a waking watch had been put in place, however ECFRS had “concerns about the validity” of this arrangement, leading the service to conclude that the fire safety issues present were “so significant that it's now untenable for persons to live within that building."
The residents received assistance from local councils, Essex Police, and health providers, who are also working with the owners of the building.
Leader of Harlow Council, Councillor Dan Swords explained that, “Harlow Council has been working closely with the building owner and other partners to support all those affected, with the priority to ensure all residents are supported into alternative accommodation.”
MP for Harlow, Chris Vince spoke to the BBC about the concerns this event, and similar evacuations, raise over office-to-residential conversions. Getting permission to convert buildings became easier to achieve after changes were made to the Permitted Development Rights in 2020, with 12 former office blocks converted to residential in Harlow since the change in regulations.
Vince said: “There is a bigger question here about the suitability of some office block conversions.
"It would be fair to question whether these developments were really suitable, particularly for families".
He went on to raise his concerns that "something like this could happen again” and explained that the "answer is we need to build proper, purpose-built houses, rather than these quick fixes, in order to tackle the housing crisis.