Social landlords are being served with an average of one enforcement notice a week by fire brigades across England.
Research carried out by Inside Housing reveals that over the last six months for which records are available - between the beginning of September 2011 and March this year - at least 35 notices have been served on social landlords.
Fire enforcement notices are issued where a landlord has failed to comply with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and set out corrective measures they are legally obliged to complete within a specific timescale.
The majority of the enforcement notices - 29 - were served on London-based landlords. The news comes less than three years after a high-profile tragedy which highlighted the importance of fire safety in tower blocks, when six people died in Southwark Council’s 12-storey tower block, Lakanal House.
London Fire Brigade confirmed that it had carried out audits on 1,642 blocks of flats with four or more storeys in 2011/12 - a figure which includes blocks that are not owned by social landlords. In 66 cases (4 per cent) it issued an enforcement notice following the audit.
In the same year the LFB audited an overall total of 13,229 premises and issued 694 enforcement notices - 5 per cent of the total.
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