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Fire brigade to set a £277 release fee
for lift rescues
Owners of problem buildings face call-out charge for first time
LONDON Fire Brigade is set to fine the Town Hall if crews are repeatedly called out to the same council blocks to rescue people trapped in broken lifts.
From the start of November, lift call-outs will be downgraded in priority among rescue teams to “non-emergency” status.
Under the changes, the LFB will still send firefighters to help people stuck in faulty lifts but not at the expense of other call-outs.
Owners of buildings that repeatedly request assistance will be charged for the call-outs for the first time.
The shift in policy could be expensive for landlords in Westminster in particular. The borough has one of the worst records for lift breakdowns in the whole of the capital, with fire crews making 1,381 visits to Westminster lifts between April 2008 and April 2009 – more than three call-outs a day.
CityWest Homes, which manages most of the borough’s high-rise estates on behalf of the council, will be handed a £277 bill per call-out to estate blocks where more than 10 emergency calls are made in a year.
For residents the policy-shift spells worry. Anyone caught in a broken lift may face longer waits to be rescued because firefighters will be instructed not to use sirens or blue lights to beat traffic.
CityWest Homes is spending £2.25million this year on upgrading and replacing faulty lifts. They fit lifts with alarms and an emergency engineer number with a one-hour call-out guarantee.
A spokesman for CityWest Homes said: “We are aware that the fire brigade is concerned about the number of occasions that they are called out to release people from lifts that have broken down and have put in place a system which advises residents not to call the fire brigade but to call a dedicated emergency number
“Of the 365 lifts that we manage the average amount of times a lift would break down in a year is seven. We would expect a lift in a high rise block to have made approximately 200,000 reliable journeys.”
An LFB spokesman said: “This charging scheme is being implemented to incentivise building owners to tackle this problem where it has reached an unacceptable level.
“We will always attend emergencies where people need to be rescued but where alternative arrangements to release people shut in lifts are in place they should be used.”
He added: “Alongside the costing the brigade millions of pounds, these calls could take firefighters away from emergencies like fires.
“The responsibility to make suitable arrangements for lift maintenance and the safe release of anyone shut in lifts is with the owner of a building, not the emergency services.”
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