Tower block no longer a 'large risk to life', says firm

A company has told AMs there is no longer a "large risk to life" from fire at a private high rise block it manages.

Mainstay used the phrase in a document sent to the equalities committee.

The firm has not said where the building is, but a fire service manager suggested it is in the Swansea area.

The company said the risk to life warning came from a survey it ordered, but it had taken immediate action and that risk had now "gone away".

The assembly committee is holding an inquiry into fire safety in high rise blocks in Wales, following the Grenfell Tower disaster.

In the document, Mainstay said it commissioned the survey after receiving an enforcement notice from Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service in June 2017.

The survey concluded the block was of a "sub-standard build" and that there were "various issues if non-conformance with a large risk to life".

The cost of making the required improvements was estimated to be £3.7m.

Mainstay said it had also received another enforcement notice in June 2018, relating to "further issues identified".

The firm said the developer of the building had not accepted responsibility for the deficiencies and Mainstay was making residents aware of the issues and the "potential costs they could incur".

Mainstay chairman, David Clark told the committee: "On the back of the survey we immediately took mitigations with the advice of our fire authority.

"On those mitigations included an immediate waking watch, and subsequently a category one alarm was installed.

"So those have mitigated any risk to life - that's gone away."

Earlier, David Hancock from Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service was asked by the committee chairman, Labour AM John Griffiths, if he was confident everything that needed to be done to deal with the safety issues was being addressed.

He replied: "Yes. If we'd felt that the risk to life is greater than it's perceived to be at the moment then we would have looked to issue a stronger form of notice, i.e. a prohibition notice."

A prohibition notice would mean the residents would have been asked to move out of the building.