Retirement village fire trial – the facts
Beechmere retirement village in Crewe, which was home to about 150 vulnerable residents, was destroyed by a fire on 8 August2019.
Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service initially pursued six firms – responsible from the design and build of the retirement village through to fire risk assessment and ongoing repair and maintenance – but action against two of them was subsequently dropped. The trial against the remaining four began, but on only the second day the fire service withdrew its prosecutions.
Chief fire officer Alex Waller explained: "Following extensive legal submissions heard over the first two days of the trial, unfortunately it became clear that there would be no realistic prospect of securing convictions. After carefully considering legal advice, regrettably we have taken the very difficult decision to withdraw our prosecution case against all four defendants.
"We understand that former residents of Beechmere and their families will be disappointed with this outcome, which is not the one we have been working hard to achieve."
Fire trial implications for the construction and property management firms
The collapse of the trial will no doubt have come as a huge relief to the four companies concerned, which between them were responsible for everything from building design through to day-to-day operations:
- Avantage (Cheshire) Ltd - a subsidiary of Your Housing Ltd which was contracted to procure the design, build and finance of Beechmere and operate the village
- Your Housing Ltd - employed staff at Beechmere and was responsible for fire safety measures at the site
- Morgan Sindall Property Services Ltd - the facilities management subcontractor to Avantage with responsibility for repairs and maintenance
- Total Fire Group Ltd - contracted to carry out fire risk assessments in August 2017 and August 2018 at Beechmere
Of the other two companies that were initially facing action, no evidence was offered against WSP UK Limited or MAC Roofing Ltd, according to a court representative, and not guilty verdicts were entered for both.
But whilst all six now have ‘not guilty’ verdicts publicly recorded against them, they have all had to go through six years of defending their actions and their reputations, with extensive media coverage both of the initial blaze and the ongoing legal case.
Brand reputations can take years to build – but can be destroyed overnight. Incidents such as these can shake customer, partner and investor confidence. Not to mention the costs and management time in defending a major legal case.
The lessons to be learnt from the retirement village fire trial
The Beechmere retirement village fire, and the consequent legal cases against the six companies, are a stark reminder to anyone involved in construction or property management of the need for robust, proactive, professional fire risk management. This doesn’t happen by accident; it requires expertise and thoroughness – and, crucially, it needs to be evidenced in an up-to-date fire risk management plan.
Being compliant with all relevant legislation and requirements to make your buildings as resilient to fire risk as possible may not prevent a fire such as the one at Beechmere retirement village. But it may slow down the spread of the fire, creating crucial extra minutes to evacuate the building safely to protect lives.
It can also enable you to look the world in the eye – and yourself in the mirror – and say with honesty and integrity, ‘We did it all by the book – we did everything we could to prevent this happening’.
Being able to evidence this to clients, staff, partners and investors could be vital in preventing irreversible reputational damage. It could also potentially curtail a long and expensive legal case – both in layers’ fees and management time –which can be further brand damaging.
Fortunately, fires like those at Beechmere retirement village are rare, but they provide a wake-upcall to everyone in construction and property management to ensure that our buildings have effective fire risk management plans.
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