Shrigley hall fire safety report 2015

Guest Fire Safety Review

Shrigley Hall Hotel

Shrigley Hall Hotel Golf and Country Club Shrigley Road Macclesfield SK10

Alan Cox 28th December 2015

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Introduction This review was undertaken during a stay at the hotel between the 23rd and 27th December 2015 and only represents areas of the hotel that were available to guests and does not necessarily reflect the standard of fire safety in staff and private areas.

I have made previous comments about the hotel in a Trip Advisor Review that was published on the 29th December 2014 and in subsequent communications to Steve Dunford the General Manager.

The purpose of this review is to highlight the poor standard of fire safety that still exist in this building.

1. Previous Comments and Observations Part of my Trip Advisor Review stated “During our visit we noted things such as damaged fire door hold open devices resulting in fire doors being "wedged open", the main gas log fire not working due we were informed by a defective flue and badly damaged furniture and when we made the reservation I indicated that I could see why they had received some poor ratings but they did not enquire about the detail. I had expected these things to be rectified in time for Christmas but they were not which clearly illustrates a lack of maintenance and urgency in looking after fire safety matters.” Whilst a number of these aspects have been rectified there are still very many areas that require urgent attention.

A recent review by another guest states the following “At 5am we were awoken by the fire alarm & what ensued can only be described as total chaos. There was no designated meeting place, people were wandering all over the place, there was no organisation, truly it was quite scary. As it turned out, it may or may not have been caused by some sort of elevator mis-function but had it been a real fire, there is no doubt in my mind that lives would have been lost Again lots of apologies at the reception on checking out for our being woken by the alarm, but as I pointed out, no-one expects apologies for fire alarms being sounded. Not a great way to wake admittedly but things happen. What they should have been apologising for was how badly the whole incident was handled. Don't they have drills, exercises in how to handle such a situation?

My friend works at a school & fire drills are carried out on a monthly basis.”

Whilst I cannot verify the above review it does contain some worrying observations.

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2. My Observations Many of my observations relate to poor fire separation, lack of maintenance and staff knowledge which I find very worrying in a building like this. It should also be remembered that at this time of year there were many elderly guests with mobility problems, impaired hearing and sight.

When speaking to staff it was very apparent that many were not aware of the existence of Emergency Evacuation Plans or Evacuation Aids for Disabled Guests or of the dangers posed by the charging of Mobility Scooters and this was also very worrying.

A cursory look into the ceiling void indicated that there were a lot of breaks and openings in the fire separation that would allow fire to travel unchecked between compartments and floors and this needs urgent attention as there was no fire detection seen in the voids that I looked at. a.) Fire Doors

Poor firestopping.

The picture on the right shows the defects that I reported after my previous visit in 2014 and the photo on the left is where it has not been properly rectified. This will not provide 30 minutes fire resistance.

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Fire doors “wedged open”.

Fire door – not closing properly.

These are just examples of fire doord that were “wedged open” or were poorly fitting.

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Fire doors to kitchen – poorly fitting

Fire doors – poorly fitting

Two more examples of poorly fitting fire doors – fire doors on the left are to the main kitchen, which is a “high fire risk” area - note the large gap at the top, which is the most vulnerable area. A fire in this area could easily spread to the rest of the hotel.

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This is another poorly fitting fire door to what appears to be a plant area. Note also that the frame is sealed using a foam and whilst it was not possible to determine if this has any fire resistance this needs to be checked to ascertain if it will achieve 30 minutes fire resistance. It was not possible to identify if this door was fitted with intumescent or smoke seals but there were many doors that did have these fitted or were fitted, were defective.

Foam filler..

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Two more examples of poorly fitting fire doors – there were many other examples but these clearly show the extent of the problem.

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Here you can see a hole in a fire door which would cause early failure in a fire situation.

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b.) Emergency Lighting

Whilst it was not possible to test the emergency lighting there were a number that looked to have defective tubes and others that were not showing mains indicator lights.

These lights need to be maintained in accordance with the British Standard c.) Fire Extinguishers

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A number of extinguishers have been missed from the annual servicing contract and these need to be maintained in accordance with the British Standard. This one does not appear to have been serviced since 2011. I think the question that needs to be asked is “how has this remained unchecked for 4 years?” d.) Fire Notices There is no information on some phones detailing what number to dial in the event of an emergency.

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e.) Portable Appliance Testing (PAT) It was noted that some portable appliances had no record of PAT testing and this needs to be rectified as a matter of urgency.

3. Summary Whilst I have not included all of the areas of concern in my review I think you can see there are many aspects that need urgent attention. You should have undertaken a Fire Risk Assessment (FRA) on the building that should have highlighted these matters and if it didn’t you may need to ask why these areas have not been identified previously.

Alan Cox

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