The fact that the owner has been doing this for a decade is of no consequence. The Fire officer who inspected previously may have cocked up and not picked up on the issue , or standards / knowledge may have been updated or increased since the last inspection.
But regardless of the reasons why the issue has only now come to light, just because the RP has done it for a decade doesn't make it right. You are totally missing the point about enforcement notices. They are designed to be non prescriptive because the fire safety order is designed to allow different ways of achieving compliance. If the notice said "You will replace every battery once the warning light comes on" then surely it is too presecriptive. You said that Mr nasty Fire Officer must exist and how prescriptive and unreasonable he is and then moan when an enforcement notice is non prescriptive. I just don't see where you are coming from. What has the owner done to prove his system works? The answer is we don't know, and so unhelpful comments about the circumstances dont really achieve anything.
I take exception to being accused of making 'unhelpful comments'. Kurnal's original post asked for opinions. I gave the opinion that the fire officer probably did not know enough about wireless fire alarm systems and batteries. None of us know the precise details of the actual circumstances of what has happened. Therefore I did not actually criticise the fire officer and say what he had done was wrong. I voiced sympathy for the business owner and asked the question if it was right for such an enforcement notice to be issued in the circumstances that were described, and asked if the fire officer could have given some leeway, before the enforcement notice was issued, for the business owner to try and prove his method of dealing with the low battery warnings was acceptable.
I'm not saying that the business owner's method was or wasn't correct, but wondered if issuing an enforcement notice in the circumstances described, was the way that both sides 'could work together'
Whilst also not knowing all the details, other postings have stated that the fire officer is totally right in what he has done and his 'probable' understanding of the effect of the low-battery fault warnings is correct, but these postings have not, in my opinion, offered any arguments to convince me why. Furthermore, no one has offered an explanation or opinion to my question as to why no 'time-based leeway' appears to be given.
Cleveland fire intoduced the concept of Mr Nasty Fire Officer I only asked that if he didn't exist, why do so many people talk about him?
I'm accused of 'moaning' about prescriptive and non-prescriptive desicions. Where is the proof that I've ever moaned about prescriptive desicions? I feel that that a desicion saying you will do X because of Y is perfectly acceptable, if it is the best solution in respect of cost
and effectiveness. Obviously, this couldn't be achieved in the past otherwise there would have been no reason to change things. I wonder why?
Whilst perfectly understanding the problems of those enforcing standards, I once again suggest that those who hold the 'power' need to be seen to be reasonable and sensible, as far as possible, to ensure it really doesn't become and 'us' and 'them' position. How would that make anyone's life anything but more difficult?