Cambridge City Council - Communal Fire Risk Assessments

Cambridge City Council's Fire Safety Policy defines its duties under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Its Fire Risk Management Strategy sets out how this will be delivered and includes Article 9 of the Order: Risk assessment. The authority has approximately 500 buildings to which the Order applies, of these 400 are non-residential settings with 700 communal areas (known as assessable areas) requiring a fire risk assessment. A 'site visit' is required for a block with potentially more than one assessable area under the same roof and deemed to be one premises for the purposes of the fire risk inspection program. The 'sites' have been arranged into geographical areas in Cambridge City. The premises for assessment are varied in their design but tend to be older stock (post war 1950's onwards) and are mostly low rise; small ground + first floor blocks, many with multiple communal areas. There are some blocks with 4 floors and a balcony approach which are comprised of maisonettes above 4.5m. Many flats are leasehold properties. There are no high rise/risk blocks to assess. In 2020, Cambridge City Council halted its fire risk assessment program due to the Covid-19 pandemic and also brought its fire risk assessments in-house having previously been contracted out. The effect of this has been that the fire risk assessment program has fallen significantly behind with over 300 blocks requiring new initial fire risk assessments. Cambridge City Council is seeking to bring the fire risk assessment program back on track by the end of September 2022.