We want everyone who lives in a Camden council home to live in a safe, well-maintained building.
We will be making changes. Your safety is our priority and our focus will be delivering this programme by 2025.
We will be making physical improvements to your homes to make them safer, but we know that safety isn’t just about bricks and mortar. We will also work with you, your neighbours and your community to make sure that everyone knows how to keep themselves and the people around them safe at home.
We will make sure that you always have a voice in decisions made about safety in your home. If you need information about the safety of your building, we want to make it easy for you to always find it.
Delivering our plans
It will take us time to make all the changes that are needed but we have committed to doing this by 2025.
We will also need you to play your part in the safety of your building – safer homes are up to everyone.
These are our commitments to you and what you need to do to keep your building safe.
1. We will work with you to keep your homes and buildings safe
Your safety is always our first priority. We will make sure that all of our tenants and leaseholders live in safe, well maintained buildings:
- We will install smoke detectors in every tenanted council home to make sure that everyone has early warning in the event of a fire.
- We will install a fire door with at least 30 minutes of fire resistance to every communal or front door that needs one. To make sure that everyone who lives in our council homes is safe, we will install fire resistant front doors for leaseholders at no charge.
- We will regularly inspect all of our tenanted homes to make sure they are to the highest standard of safety including checking your gas, electricity and water.
- We will remove any items left in the communal areas that could be a risk to your safety.
- We will take legal action where necessary against residents who increase the fire risk in your building.
2. We will make sure you know how to stay safe at home
We want you to feel safe and to know how to keep you, your family and your neighbours safe. We will make sure that you have all the information you need to stay safe at home and where to get it if you don’t:
- We will provide clear fire exit and emergency signs in your building that are accessible to everyone, so that all residents of our council homes know what to do if there is a fire.
- We will work with the London Fire Brigade to make sure that they are aware of any residents in our council homes who may need help to get out in an emergency so that they can get the support they need.
- We will regularly send you information about staying safe with your rent statements and the Housing News
3. We will be transparent
We will make sure that you can access any safety information that you need about your home and that you are as involved as you want to be in fire risk assessments and safety works:
- When we carry out a fire risk assessment in your building we will invite your TRA to attend the assessment visit.
- After your fire risk assessment we will let you know about any safety work that we need to do, and how and when we will do it.
- We will invite resident representatives to join quality inspections of fire safety works to make sure they are always completed to the highest standard.
- We will publish the results of all of our fire risk assessments, so that you can find out about safety at your building at any time.
- We will publish an annual fire and building safety delivery plan and report on how we are doing in meeting the targets in the plan.
4. We will always listen to you about safety
You know your home and your building better than anyone. We will make sure you always have a voice in decisions made about the safety of your home.
- We will make sure you know how to report a safety concern and always take you seriously when you do. A repairs operative will be with you between six and 24 hours of you reporting a repair that affects your safety.
- When we’re planning safety works to your building we will always let you know what we are planning and why, and listen to your feedback on how we do it.
- We will regularly report to residents at the Fire Safety and Compliance Advisory Panel and Housing Scrutiny Committee, so that residents can ask questions, share their ideas and hold us to account on safety.
5. Fire and building safety is up to everyone – play your part
We have responsibilities to you as a landlord. But for all of our council homes to be safe, we need all of our tenants, leaseholders and subtenants to play their part. You and everyone you live with can help keep your building safe by:
- Keeping communal areas clear. Communal areas like hallways, staircases and fire exits must be kept clear at all times of anything that could catch fire or get in someone’s way in an emergency, including rubbish, shoes and buggies.
- We will need to be stricter in some buildings, including street properties, to make sure everyone is safe. If you live in a street property, the only thing you can have outside your door or in any indoor communal area is a doormat.
- In purpose built blocks you can keep some small items like live pot plants outside your home, if it is safe for you and the people living around you. Items found in communal areas that could put people at risk will be removed and may be disposed of.
- Letting us in. You have a legal obligation to let us or our contractors into your home to carry out safety checks and work – for tenants, this includes your annual gas safety visit. This is to keep everyone safe. All of our contractors will always carry photo ID.
- Always asking the Council first if you want to carry out alterations to your home.
- Never removing your door closer and never removing or changing any door, particularly your front door. This includes changing your letterbox or fitting a cat flap. If you do, it can make your home less fire safe and put you, your family and your neighbours at risk.
- Using your balcony safely. Don’t store things on your balcony, especially anything that can catch fire. Never have a barbecue on your balcony, and never throw cigarettes from your balcony or windows.
- Telling us if you or someone you live with would need help to get out in emergency, so that we can make sure that the London Fire Brigade know and can give you the support you need.
- Thinking about the safety of your neighbours and the people living in your building. If you see anyone behaving in a way that could make your building less fire safe – for example storing things in communal areas or changing fire doors – report it immediately.
- Holding us to account – if we are not doing our part for safety in your building, let us know so we can make changes as soon as possible.
Reporting our progress
Read our annual fire and building safety report to see what we achieved from April 2021 to March 2022.
We want to keep improving, so let us know how you think we’re getting on and if we need to do things differently.