FIRE SAFETY EVENT

THE FIRE SAFETY

EVENT

Mike Ward reports from the Fire Safety Event at the NEC, Birmingham on 5-7th April. It was the ASFP’s second visit to the Fire Safety Event in six months, with the last event having taken place in the September of 2021, with that event being the first for the fire safety and construction passive sector since the beginning of COVID.

The 2022 show was a huge success with many member companies joining us there around the ASFP stand. In usual ASFP fashion our ASFPTV team went round and gave each member a visit. All interviews can be seen here: www.youtube.com/ASFPTV

This year’s ASFP member exhibitors were: • Checkmate Fire Solutions • Coopers Fire • Firetrace Ductwork • FSI • IFC Certification • London Fire Solutions • Profire Systems • Quelfire • Rockwool • Sika The show was well organised with the ASFP rebranding the name of their theatre from the Tall Buildings to the Passive Fire theatre, a move designed to capture all aspects of passive fire in the construction sector and be more inclusive for those speakers who may not be directly involved in passive fire but still have value to offer through their knowledge and experience.

The talks given at the 2022 show were:

• Dan Rossiter, BSI - Supporting the Golden Thread through product traceability • Philip Sayer, CCPI - Building a Safer Future Code for Construction Product Information • Adrian Aynsley and Ashley Philips, Etex - The critical importance of passive fire protection in the

UK marketplace in terms of data and figures, and building envelope in terms of cavity barriers • Russ Timpson, Tall Building Fire Safety Network - What you need to know to manage Fire Safety in High Rise Buildings • Hannah Mansell, Masonite UK - Passive Fire Protection • Stephen Bond, Glass & Glazing Federation - Getting it wrong / Getting it right • David Keeble, Coopers Fire- Fire Curtains and their applications • Andrew Cooper, Global HSE Solutions - CPVC & Passive Fire Protection Lessons Learned • Moe Elmasry, Checkmate Fire Solutions - Early Planning and Electronic Work Logging • Joe Cilia, FIS - Should we be treating Walls as a system? • Andrew Taylor, ASFP - Not if but when...? How the ASFP sought to change PFP regulation and where will we go from here?

The ASFP’s stand was the largest of any previous Fire Safety Event, covering some 60 square metres and including multiple AV systems, a meeting zone and the ASFPTV interview area where speakers coming off the passive fire theatre were interviewed about their presentations ready for future broadcast on the association’s media channels. We thank the team at 19 Group for their ongoing support of the ASFP and its members at the show.

The ASFPTV team were out interviewing as many exhibiting ASFP members as possible and this year some of our fellow trade associations. Key subjects included the Government’s recent scrapping of the legal requirement for building owners to appoint a building safety manager as part of a series of amendments to the Building Safety Bill, Rt Hon Michael Gove’s demand that the construction industry fund rectification work(s) on ‘legacy jobs’ and the ever-increasing pressure put on specialist sub-contractors and consultants by the cost and limited availability of cover for Professional Indemnity insurance (PI). On a brighter note, ASFP members were keen to talk about their ever-increasing levels of employee competence through the ASFP’s 2021 Competency Pathway scheme, plus tell the ASFPTV team all about new products and services for the year ahead.

ASFP’s CEO, Steve Davies attended a roundtable discussion on ‘Updates on new fire safety/ building legislation’, which included other notable members of the fire and safety industry, Jon O’Neill (FPA) and Dennis Davis (Fire Sector Federation).

Throughout the event we were greeted by many familiar and unfamiliar faces with plenty of enquiries about membership, training and technical questions, which in some cases, tested the very best of our technical team. Visitor migration between the ASFP stand and theatre was good with many coming to the ASFP stand off the back of listening to the talks at the theatre. During the final day, the ASFP used the Fire Safety Event as a backdrop for the association’s new marketing group to meet and follow up on their previous meeting from the month before. Overall, the Fire Safety Event was worth the effort, it is sometimes hard to quantify success from trade shows; however, the ASFP’s investment in its new CRM system will significantly improve the association’s engagement and follow-up of those that chose to seek us out in Birmingham.

We documented the first two days we were there as well as all of our speakers. To watch any videos from the event please visit www.asfp.org.uk/page/TheFireSafetyEvent