A mother left her new-born baby's buggy in the hallway of a block of flats in Bournemouth only for it to be seized by officials for being a heath and safety hazard.And that’s not even the worst part..
Lee-Anna Futcher must now pay £50 to get the brand-new pram back after it was confiscated because it may have caused an obstruction in the event of a fire.Note the ‘may’ there.
And yet another council stealth tax…
Miss Futcher, 28, left the buggy in the communal hallway of the council flats she lives in as she struggled up two flights of stairs with her seven-day-old baby Mason and bags.I wonder why she had to struggle up the stairs? No lift? Lift broken?
But before her partner Matthew Clark-Bradbury could return home two hours later and haul it upstairs with him, the over-zealous council officers struck.
They have four weeks to pay the money or the buggy will be disposed of by Bournemouth Borough Council in Dorset.There’s probably no council target for that, you see.
"It's daylight robbery and now I am being held to ransom to get my own property back," said Miss Futcher. "They said it was a matter of health and safety but what about the health and safety of a mum struggling upstairs with a baby?
And it seems this is a new thing for the council:
She has previously left Callum's pushchair in the hallway without any problems and even had permission from the council to keep it there.So what prompted this draconian and speedy action?
Ian Shaw, the council's housing manager, said: "The health and safety of our residents is our number one priority. It is our responsibility to ensure fire escape routes are clear and the importance is evident when you read the tragic story of the tower block fire that killed six people in Camberwell in July.Ummm, how many people died in that fire due to obstruction of the stairwell, then?
None:
The deaths of six people in a fire at a tower block in Camberwell, south London, last month could have been caused by botched and potentially illegal renovations by the local council, according to fire safety experts.Can’t wait to hear if that turns out to be true…
But contrast the speedy response here to a potential risk, albeit a very remote one, versus the apathy shown to the Pilkington case.
12 comments:
I can see how a pram would cause a great obstruction, how could anyone possibly move a lightwieght buggy on wheels out of the way quickly enough to escape a fire?
I think the council official was very lucky.
Imagine him being reported to the police for hanging round a hallway looking out for a newborn baby, then walking down the street pushing an empty pram......
In Scotland this would count as theft.
There are some things we are better at, up here!
Well spotted.
And as we know from an earlier thread, the council can't even give that buggy to a charity shop (thus enabling the poor woman to buy it back for tenner)!
I have personal experience of council cancers rendering homes uninhabitable due to their obsession with fire precautions; in my case, the block of flats I lived in, where the council-mandated fire alarm would go off nine or ten times a week.
In the end the tenants solved the problem by disarming most of the alarm points, but we had to remember to conceal the fact whenever the council scum came round to inspect the place (these filth have right of entry to inspect for fire precautions).
Brian, follower of Deornoth
I'm intrigued to know what the £50 ransom was for?
Why are we letting these bastards rule us like this???
"...how could anyone possibly move a lightwieght buggy on wheels out of the way quickly enough to escape a fire?"
Indeed. A veritable deathtrap!
"Imagine him being reported to the police for hanging round a hallway looking out for a newborn baby, then walking down the street pushing an empty pram......"
Heh! Now, there's a happy thought..
"I have personal experience of council cancers rendering homes uninhabitable due to their obsession with fire precautions.."
And yet, they didn't help anyone in Camberwell...
"I'm intrigued to know what the £50 ransom was for?"
Challenging the rule of the council, of course...
She could have left her toddler alone in the flat whilst she went down stairs to retrieve the buggy.
Then, she'd only have to answer to Social Services, but at least it wouldn't have cost her £50
Sorry to break ranks, but there are two aspects to this.
One is the aforementioned risk of obstruction on an emergency exit route.
But the other is keeping the exit route clear of anything flammable. From the newspaper picture it looked like a fairly well set-up zone with no carpets, wallpaper, or anything that would be vulnerable to catching fire. The thinking behind that is to keep the emergency exit free of smoke, which could otherwise trap folk in their apartments.
I reckon if the buggy caught fire, you would see a shocking amount of smoke throughout that stairwell, pretty quickly. I think they are trying to maintain a sanitised exit path.
It is a great shame though, that there is no communal storage area on the ground floor, in which her buggy could be secured behind a fire door. A place for buggies, bikes, shopping carts, tri-walkers, should have been set aside when the place was built.
"I reckon if the buggy caught fire"
Yes, becuase buggies are spontaneously combusting all over the place.
Rob you don't really want the safety of all the occupants of a block of flats to be dependant on stuff in the stairwells not catching fire, or not being set ablaze.
Hoping there won't be a fire isn't a reasonable safety plan. They have to expect fires, and ensure there is always a safe escape route when they happen.
Incidentally, concerning that Camberwell fire, I think individuals who sanctioned the work on that building ought to be prosecuted. It appears that in effect they had breached the original firewall between apartments and the single escape route. I can't help wondering if the planning authorities would have stopped a private landlord from doing likewise.
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