Following the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower in London, KFRS began a programme of visits, to provide reassurance to residents living in high rise properties in Kent and Medway.
KFRS has already completed visits to all of the residential buildings of ten floors or above to carry out routine fire safety inspections and review firefighting plans for each building. We will have completed visits to residential blocks of six floors and above by mid-August. Each visit has been conducted by members of KFRS operational crews, alongside specialists from the community and business safety teams.
KFRS staff have also been offering reassurance to residents in the flats and encouraging them to make sure that they are familiar with fire safety procedures and evacuation plans for their own building. Our community safety team have also been on hand to carry out home safety checks of people’s own homes, as an extra reassurance and have handed out leaflets with safety advice, including in other languages.
In the next phase KFRS will continue this work with non-residential high rise premises such as offices, hotels and other commercial buildings.
Cladding
There is a national process of testing cladding on high-rise properties commissioned by the DCLG (Department of Communities and Local Government). Should there be an issue, the local authority or building owner will be notified and local fire and rescue services will also be asked to do a safety visit. So far (4.8.17) KFRS has received no notification that any of the high-rise buildings in Kent and Medway are among those identified with concerns about the cladding.
