Hartlepool businesses face bills for false alarms as Cleveland Fire Brigade gets tough on time-wasters

Cleveland Fire Authority approved the proposals which will allow them to charge industrial and commercial properties if they have multiple unwanted automatic fire signals from their site.

The option to charge will come in once an organisation hits its fifth false alarm of the year, with the charge to be £354, excluding VAT.

It was revealed the fire authority would have been able to charge for 40 false alarms last year, across 11 premises, which would have brought in just over £26,500.

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Carl Boasman, assistant chief fire officer at Cleveland Fire Brigade, said the policy is not about generating money, but continuing to cut down on false alarms.

He added businesses will be given fair warning and chance to improve, and the fire authority will work with them to help address the issue.

He said: “This proposal does come with a continued commitment to support businesses to understand their responsibilities under the fire safety order.

“The driver for this proposal is to provide an additional means of influencing the responsible persons to manage their automatic fire detection systems more effectively.

“Attending automatic fire alarms that result in unwanted fire signals is wasteful for both the businesses and also in terms of our resources.

“The anticipated benefits will include a further reduction in the number of automatic fire alarms that result in unwanted fire signals and ultimately will result in less business disruption and more efficient use of fire and rescue resources.”

A public consultation by the fire authority showed the move had received a ‘good level of support’ from the community with more than 90% of those responding backing charges alongside 68% of businesses.

Officers added there had been ‘a positive direction of travel’ in regards to the number of false alarms across Cleveland, with a 39% fall in the past five years.

However, there had still been 503 cases last year where appliances had to be sent out where there wasn’t a problem last year.

The Hartlepool site with the most issues of unwanted call outs in 2019/20 was Exwold Technology in Brenda Road, which had 9 unwanted call outs.

The Riverside Stadium also featured on the list of those “performing most poorly” with 10 false alarms between April 2019 and April this year.

Reports revealed Middlesbrough Town Hall and the Municipal Buildings had the worst record for the problem in 2019/20- with 16 unwanted call outs.

The policy does not apply to domestic premises, and officers stressed they will continue to respond to all calls to domestic sites and those identified as high risk.

It comes after the proposals were previously recommended for approval by Cleveland Fire’s Executive Committee last month.

At that meeting, Chair Cllr Paul Kirton said: “I’m quite sure when they understand it’s going to cost them money every time a fire engine turns up at their door for no reason at all I’m quite sure they’ll get the message.”

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