New Safety Standard launched

Salix Homes has launched a new standard of safety for its high rise buildings.

Following the tragic events at Grenfell Tower in June 2017, the Salford-based housing association made a commitment to raise the bar of building safety for its high rise blocks.

The new ‘Safety Standard Promise’ pulls together a range of measures the organisation has implemented to further enhance high-rise buildings.

These include dedicated property safety officers, state-of-the-art fire alarm systems and a clear process for residents to report any concerns.

As one of just three housing providers making up the Government’s advisory ‘Early Adopters;’ group, many of the measures are part of the emerging recommendations being considered by the government following Dame Judith Hackitt’s review of building regulations.

Salix Homes owns 18 tower blocks across Salford, eight of which were found to have partial aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding systems that did not meet the Government’s test criteria. These cladding systems were fully removed from all eight blocks since last spring, with remedial work now completed on all but two blocks.

Sue Sutton, executive director of operations at Salix Homes said: “We made a promise to our residents that we would establish an enhanced safety standard across our blocks.

Our new Safety Standard Promise does just that, making sure our buildings continue to be safe places to live and crucially giving our residents that extra piece of mind following the tragic events at Grenfell Tower.

“We’re proud to be leading the way on establishing what a new approach to building safety might look like for the industry”