Fire safety at home

Housing Services takes your safety very seriously and carries out regular fire safety checks on its properties. Details of how you can help keep yourself, your family and your neighbours safe from fire can be found in the “Housing Services factsheet - fire safety in your home” which is included in your Welcome Pack information.

If you live in sheltered housing there is an additional “Housing Services factsheet – fire safety in sheltered housing” which your Scheme Officer will discuss with you. More information is available at www.havering.gov.uk/FireSafety.

As a council, we are doing all that we can to keep our residents safe from fire, but you can help too by following this advice:

• make sure you have at least one working smoke alarm per floor in your home

• keep balconies free from clutter - don’t leave rubbish or bikes in communal areas or obstruct escape routes

• make sure you know where your nearest fire exit is

• do not smoke in common areas of the block

• always fully extinguish cigarettes smoked in your home and dispose of them carefully and safely

• close internal doors at night to prevent fire from spreading

• make sure to have gas appliances safety checked

• residents should not make changes to the property which could be a fire risk

• not to tamper with firefighting equipment & alarms

Remember, if there is a fire in your home:

• never use a lift

• do not try to fight the fire yourself

• call 999 from any phone

Residents can dispose of rubbish and bulky waste items in the following ways:

Houses

Black rubbish bags and orange recycling sacks should be stored within the boundary of your property. These then should be presented for collection by 7am at the boundary nearest the pavement on your weekly scheduled collection day. Please visit www.havering.gov.uk/collections

Do not store waste in corridors or any other communal areas apart from the designated waste storage area. Waste should be placed into the bins provided and any lids shut where possible. Waste should not block any doorways or access routes including within and outside of the waste storage areas. If you have concerns that there is not enough waste storage please contact your Housing Estates Officer.

Bulky waste

Large/bulky waste items are not collected as part of the regular household waste collection service therefore alternative arrangements for removal must be made. The Council offers a chargeable bulky waste collection service, full details can be found at www.havering.gov.uk/bulkywaste.

Alternatively, large waste items along with any excess waste can be taken to the Gerpins Lane Recycling Centre, further details can be found at www.eastlondonwaste.gov.uk/gerpins-lane

With our garden waste service you can order one or more 240-litre wheeled green bins to put your garden waste into.

Garden waste is collected every other week (except two weeks over Christmas) and disposed of for a fee per year. You sign up to the service with an annual contract and we send contract renewal letters and emails with your contract details (reference number and charges) normally from the first week of March, over a several week period, each year.

The garden waste contract runs from 1 April to 31 March the following year, further details of the services offered can be found at https://www.havering.gov.uk/info/20003/rubbish_and_recycling or you can call us on 01708 431717 (Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm).

We provide a sack service with 50 compostable sacks to put your garden waste into. Contracts are for one calendar year from the date of subscription. We collect the garden waste sacks every other week and dispose of it for an annual fee. To subscribe or renew for this service please call 01708 432563 (Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm).

Havering Council provide orange sacks for general weekly recycling collection.

If you live in a apartment/house with a sack collection, then your sacks will be collected together at the same time, but placed into separate compartments on the waste collection vehicle.

If you live in a flat with communal rubbish and recycling bins, these will be collected separately. Please ensure that recycling (orange) and rubbish (black) are placed into the correct bins, which are clearly marked.

If you live in a house, please leave your orange sacks on the floor, just inside your property boundary nearest the pavement before 7am on your refuse collection day.

It is important that sacks are placed on the boundary of your property and not grouped together with other residents’ waste and/or on grass verges, by a post or on the public highway (including footpaths).

Please do not leave sacks on top of walls or bins as this can lead to them snagging and spilling during collection and pose a safety hazard to our crew.

If your waste is not disposed of correctly – for example, by being left in the wrong place at the wrong time – you can receive a fixed penalty fine. In a Magistrates Court the fine can be increased to a maximum of £5,000.

Fly-tippers who dump waste, can face fines of up to £50,000 in a Magistrates Court or an unlimited fine at a Crown Court.

Don’t risk these penalties – please dispose of your waste properly!

If you are reporting dumped rubbish that poses an immediate danger between 5pm and 9am on weekdays, or at weekends, please report via the Havering website or call our ‘out of hours’ emergency line01708 433999.