safety

With legislation changing all the time, specifying the right products is essential to meet the correct standards. We spoke with Howard Trotter, business manager of window and fire door manufacturer Shelforce, to find out what housing associations must look out for when specifying windows and doors and how Shelforce can help provide the right products for the right value.

Kidde Safety Europe is launching a new relay unit designed to provide enhanced safety for building occupants, particularly for dwellings that house vulnerable people, or where compliance with the Equality Act is essential.

Kidde Safety Europe, a trusted fire safety leader for more than 100 years, has unveiled a significant rebrand. With a new logo that represents the home combined with the strapline: ‘The Power to Protect,’ the roll-out of the new identity started to hit the merchant and wholesaler shelves on new packaging earlier this year with the launch of Kidde’s new Co2 Monitor.  Kidde is a part of Carrier Global Corporation (NYSE: CARR), global leader in intelligent climate and energy solutions.

Peter McAteer, CEO of Sysmax, the compliance, risk and competency software platform now deploying across housing providers and contractors, discusses scalable solutions to solve the Golden Thread and Building Safety Act compliance and competency management conundrum which the sector is currently wrestling with.

Born of involvement in some of the biggest industrial disasters in history, including Piper Alpha and Deep Water Horizon, I established Sysmax driven by a passion for, in its simplest terms, ensuring people with the right skills are in right place, doing things properly. After many years of investing to get Sysmax recognised as ‘the competency and compliance platform against which all others are judged’ in the oil and gas industry, we decided to share our software’s unparalleled benefits across other sectors. After all, whether in energy, manufacturing, farming, utilities, tourism and even on Hollywood movie sets, we need competency and compliance to keep things safe and efficient. The Grenfell tragedy resonated deeply with me due to personal loss and threat to my own and my family’s lives. I offered to be an expert witness based on two highly explosive properties I had experienced. The publication of the Hackitt Report made social housing and the construction supply chain appropriate markets for our platform.

National Social Housing Safety and Compliance Week 2022 will take place 7-11 March. This year’s theme is ‘Challenge for Safety’.

The event is spearheaded by the Association of Safety and Compliance Professionals (ASCP). Dedicated to shining a spotlight on safety and compliance at an operational, strategic and cultural level, this week is an opportunity for the sector as a whole to come together to make homes safer than ever before.

Recognising that electrical safety for too long has been seen as less important than gas safety within social housing, the Association of Safety and Compliance Professionals (ASCP) has launched its White Paper: Electrical Safety in Social Housing, Transformational Change.
Written following extensive consultation with ASCP and Association of Electrical Safety Managers (AESM) members, the White Paper seeks to highlight the complexity of the work safety and compliance professionals do within electrical safety, to help them be more effective in this work and to support them in challenging the status quo where necessary. It sets out the findings of the AESM Think Tank on electrical safety as well as the common themes identified by ASCP members in discussions, round table events and surveys.

Electrical safety has generally been seen as less important than gas safety despite clear evidence that each year unsafe electrical work causes more injuries, fatalities and devastation to families and communities. The fewer incidents related to gas is largely due to the annual requirement of the landlord gas safety check. Every year, almost half of all accidental house fires in the UK are caused by electrical appliances. Electrical goods were, for example, the source of ignition in the fires at Grenfell, Lakanal House and Shepherd’s Court. The Grenfell tragedy in particular, where 72 people lost their lives in June 2017, remains an emotive and powerful driver for change.

Aico were honoured to receive Her Royal Highness Princess Anne to their headquarters on Friday 8th October, in recognition of their impact as a prominent business in Shropshire.

Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal arrived at Aico headquarters in Oswestry, Shropshire and was met by Aico’s Managing Director Neal Hooper, alongside local dignitaries Mandy Thorn, Deputy Lieutenant of Shropshire, Councillor Vince Hunt, Chairman of Shropshire Council, Owen Paterson, North Shropshire MP, Councillor Mark Jones, Mayor of Oswestry and Ruth Jones, Mayoress of Oswestry.