Just to remind people, public comment needs to be received by the end of the month. We cannot guarantee that late comments will be able to be taken into account as we are on a strict timetable for publication.
There are 3 items that stand out as being contentious from our consultations and comments received thus far:
1. Compartmentation of roof voids, and the assertion that a fire resisting ceiling across the top floor flats does not do the same job as party walls going through the void. There is only mild arguement against the principle, but the cost of rectification is regarded as an issue, which is why the latest draft talks about it being done in a planned manner. This may take the heat out of it.
2. Removal of telecare from some sheltered housing flats, where residents dont need pull cords and pendants because they are fit and able. Our view is that they still need monitoring of the smoke alarms as that is for safety of everyone else and may well fall within the scope of the FSO. There is actually quite a lot of support for this view from the housing sector and EAs, but some providers see it differently.
3. Standby power supplies and duplicate pumps for suppression systems recommended in the guide, which means systems in all new sheltered housing, but retrofit only in high risk suuported housing where there are not enough staff to evacuate some residents in one hit. To my mind the power supply issue is non-negotiable, but we are interested in public comment on duplicate pumps-positive as well as negative.
More generally, if anyone supports these and any other likely contentious recommendations, a positive comment could be as useful as a negative comment, as it should not be assumed that things people like in the recs will not be reconsidered if the only comments are negative.
