Fire crews to carry out exercise at flats

Crews from fire stations in the city will carry out the exercise at Cumberland House, at St Mary’s Court near the city centre today (Thursday).

The operation had been scheduled before the horrific fire at the Grenfell tower block in London, which has left at least 79 people dead, and hundreds more homeless.

The Cumberland House block is classified as a ‘medium rise’ building, and is managed by Cross Keys Homes.

A spokesman for Cross Keys said the thoughts of all staff were with the victims of the London tragedy, as well as the emergency services who worked there.

The spokesman said: “We work extremely closely with the local fire service who often use our sites and void properties for training purposes and are very pleased to be able to offer this support to them. On Tuesday (June 13) we gave permission for them to carry out another routine fire training exercise on our medium-rise block of flats, Cumberland House, at St Mary’s Court. This will take place on 22 June, and the fire service will feedback any recommendations to us.

“We ensure we comply with all fire regulations and review our risk assessments regularly.

“Our tenants at St Mary’s Court also receive annual reminders of our fire safety procedures. In light of recent events we carried out an additional review of our fire risk assessments.

“We can confirm the evacuation advice to residents remains unchanged.”

The spokesman also confirmed the cladding on all 785 properties managed by the housing association complied with fire regulations, and ‘would not burn in a blaze.’

Residents can get fire safety advice at www.crosskeyshomes.co.uk