SCHOOLKIDS IN FIRE PERIL
Chief blasts sprinkler shortage
A FIRE chief says the Government is “playing with children’s lives” after it was revealed only a third of new schools have sprinklers.
London Fire Brigade boss Dany Cotton has complained after new proposals emerged of plans to relax rules on the safety devices.
Sprinklers are mandatory in new school buildings in Scotland and Wales, but not in England and Northern Ireland.
The National Fire Chiefs Council is calling for all new and refurbished schools to be fitted with sprinklers.
Research from the LFB revealed just four of the 184 new or refur- bished schools it advised last year installed sprinklers. The commissioner, who led the emergency response to this summer’s Grenfell Tower blaze, described the latest figures as “outrageous”.
She said: “I just do not understand why it wouldn’t be made compulsory to fit sprinklers in schools at new-build stage.
“And what I don’t want to see is a very large school fire to be the thing that brings about that change.”
Sprinkler figures have fallen dramatically with new schools frequently not bothering with them.
While 70% of schools had sprinklers 10 years ago, less than a third of the 260 schools built since 2014 have them.
That’s despite more than 1,300 schools in the UK needing fire services last year.
The council claims sprinklers are the best way to deal with a blaze before emergency services arrive.
London schools had more than 700 fires between 2009 and July 2017, but sprinklers were installed in just 15 cases.
The Department for Education said sprinklers have always been installed only when recommended by a risk assessment.