A LETTER to a local newspaper in Leeds from a high rise residents shared concerns over fire safety work being undertaken during the most recent lockdown to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yorkshire Evening Post shared the letter it was sent from an anonymous council housing resident, who said that living in a high rise council flat ‘has been a challenge’ during the pandemic as they and their neighbour have been shielding and ‘been so careful to follow the rules’, but ‘imagine our incomprehension when the council informed us that from the start of December we would be having our sprinkler system installed as though everything was normal’.
The resident argued: ‘So while we are confined to our own flats with very limited scope to go out we are expected to host gangs of workmen in our communal areas and lifts and stairs. Constant drilling, drowning out the TV and phone, but told by government that going out for the day is illegal. The virus is spreading like wildfire but it seems that our anxiety is a second thought to the planners of these types of schemes.
‘While I welcome wholeheartedly the safety benefits of the sprinklers now is not the time to carry out the work, which involves two full days in each flat on top of all the communal areas. We have 12 more weeks to endure this yet protests to the council elicit the response that everything is safe. Well I do not feel safe and I have said so.’
The news outlet contacted Leeds City Council for a response, with the council’s spokesperson stating: ‘Leeds City Council is absolutely committed to providing safe, quality homes to all of our tenants, and this is more important to us than ever during the Coronavirus pandemic. The work being conducted in Marlborough Towers is part of additional fire safety measures.
‘We continue to follow national Coronavirus guidelines and conduct strict risk and noise assessments before any work takes place. We will however work with any vulnerable residents to support them through the installation and ensure the minimum amount of disruption.’
Earlier this week, fire safety works on the Pepys Estate in Deptford, London were reported to be continuing despite the new lockdown, with council housing manager Lewisham Homes undertaking ‘major’ fire safety checks. Residents were concerned amid ‘surges’ in COVID-19 cases nationwide and in the borough of Lewisham, with concerns over construction works ‘entering [residents’] homes’.
Lewisham Homes is undertaking ‘major’ fire safety works on the estate, with workers from separate contractor firms ‘going in and out of homes’ as a result, and it stated that fire risk assessments ‘have identified the essential elements that require works to be carried out as a matter of urgency in order to improve the fire safety of our residents and their homes’, with the ‘majority’ of the work being undertaken ‘to prevent fire and smoke from spreading between rooms, flats and communal areas’.
This work has seen contractors checking fire doors, walls, floors, ceilings and electrical and plumbing installations, all while ‘checking homes are fire safety compliant’, but as COVID-19 cases rise residents have become ‘concerned the number of construction workers coming in and out is a health risk’, with Lewisham’s case numbers having ‘surged’ in the last fortnight to more than 1,000 per 100,000 people.
One resident said his neighbour was shielding, and so cancelled the works on her home, ‘but was told she would need a valid letter from her GP or they would carry out the work anyway’. In turn, resident and community centre trustee Moria Kerrane asked why works were ‘postponed in the first lockdown but not now, when cases are soaring’.
She added that ‘there is a high density of social housing tenants and BAME tenants’ in the development, and that ‘COVID prevention is the only critical work we need here’. Other residents shared concerns over their mental health, due to anxieties around catching the virus from workers, and while the company had said it would continue works, it has now suspended them after the ‘outcry’ from residents, with University Hospital Lewisham having 408 COVID-19 patients.
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