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As the Summer Series of Assembly Point draws to a close, host George Edwardes, Technical Director at the FPA is joined by Dr Joanna Cloy, Senior Project Manager at environmental charity Fidra; and Professor Richard Hull, Professor of Chemistry and Fire Science at the University of Central Lancashire to discuss the toxic impacts of smoke, focusing on chemical flame retardants in household goods.
Dr Joanna Cloy and Professor Richard Hull highlight that these retardants, particularly in upholstered furniture, can be harmful to human and environmental health, causing issues like neurotoxicity and carcinogenesis. They draw focus to the need for government action, industry collaboration, and public awareness to address the challenges posed by chemical flame retardants.
The panel debate whether current regulations support improved life safety and discuss how these need to be updated to reflect modern fire scenarios. They also explore achieving net zero whilst ensuring fire safety is not compromised, emphasising the importance of the circular economy and chemical transparency in the future.
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Listen to the penultimate episode of Assembly Point’s Summer Series as George Edwardes, Technical Director at the FPA welcomes Louise Clark, Policy Adviser at ABI to discuss the current landscape of cladding remediation from an insurer’s perspective.
George and Louise explore the need for a holistic approach to building design and construction that involves insurers early on to understand the insurance implications of material selection, the importance of resilience in the face of climate change, proactive risk management, and educating building occupants on maintenance. They also consider the role of regulation and enforcement, and ABI’s efforts to improve the availability of insurance for higher risk residential buildings through their Fire Safety Reinsurance Facility.
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Listen to the latest episode of Assembly Point as George Edwardes, Technical Director at the FPA welcomes Adam Sanders, Technical Director of RiskBase; and Peter Thomas, Host of the My Safety Tech podcast and Founder of MySafetyConsultant.io, to discuss what the continuing development of artificial intelligence (AI) could mean for the fire safety industry.
The panel discuss the potential of AI, data availability, upskilling professionals, and addressing the risks associated with incorporating AI applications into fire safety; emphasising the need for consistent data collection and sharing, integrating AI with human expertise, and improving fire safety beyond human capabilities. Together they explore the potential for creating a digital twin of a building, a more consistent approach to fire safety standards, contextualised information, and risk-proportionate solutions.
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Listen to the latest episode of Assembly Point as George Edwardes, Technical Director at the FPA is joined by Chris Miles, Commercial Director at the FPA; and Tom Gilbert, CEO at CLM Group to discuss some of the current challenges in the world of fire resistance testing and assessment methods.
The panel explore the importance of fire resistance testing and assessment methods, in particular the need for valid supporting test data, challenges in assessing complex construction designs, and the need for additional capacity in product testing. They also debate the potential impact of removing the national classifications (BS 476 series), the validity of 476 testing for fire doors, and the challenges of ensuring quality and trust in fire risk assessments. Their conversation highlights the need for improved regulations, testing capacity, and industry collaboration to provide appropriate fire safety in construction.
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In the first episode of the FPA’s 2024 podcast series, George Edwardes, Technical Director at the FPA is joined by Dr Gavin Dunn, Managing Director at the FPA; and Eoin O’Loughlin, Associate Fire Safety Engineer at Arup, to discuss the implications of the zero carbon agenda for fire safety in the built environment.
With emerging new technologies, techniques and materials, and with many designers and construction professionals moving towards low carbon materials such as timber, George, Gavin, and Eoin discuss how to achieve high fire performance whilst reducing environmental impact. The panel also look at how, as an industry, we can address the growing gap between statutory guidance and social aspirations for sustainable buildings, including by re-using existing structures.
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In the concluding episode of the 2023 series, Chris Miles, Commercial Director at the FPA is joined by the FPA's newly appointed Technical Director, George Edwardes; and Andy Miller, Loss Control Engineering Technical Manager at Allianz, to discuss a new fire safety assessment test for external cladding systems, RISC 501, which has been developed following an FPA research project into real world cladding fires and how they correspond with fire tests.
Together they explore the issues with the current route to compliance from both a testing and insurance perspective, which led to the creation of RISC 501 due to be released by RISCAuthority (an annually funded research scheme administered by the FPA) in November 2023.
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In support of the British Woodworking Federation’s Fire Door Safety Week campaign which aims to raise awareness of the critical role of fire doors, the FPA’s Commercial Director, Chris Miles takes a deep dive into the world of fire doors with Hannah Mansell, UK Group Technical Director at Masonite.
Together Chis and Hannah consider the importance and complexity of fire doors and look at the issues surrounding fire door compliance in the UK. Hannah provides insights from a manufacturer’s perspective into the challenges around ensuring fire doors are used correctly to maintain fire performance from manufacture through sourcing, installation and inspection, and minimising the distance between fire door manufacturers and residents.
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In the second episode of the Summer Series, Chris Miles, Commercial Director at the FPA is joined by two guests who have been at the forefront of the proposal made by the Fire Sector Federation almost a year ago to develop a national strategy for fire safety. Executive Officer, Steve McGuirk CBE and Active Fire Protection Director, Tom Roche provide an update on the proposal and next steps.
Together the panel look at how the white paper has been received over the past 12 months by both industry and government, the major progress points thus far, and the obstacles to be overcome. Steve and Tom provide insight in to how the Fire Sector Federation plan to work with the fire industry and construction sector to further progress the recommendations made in the document including its 3 priorities of competency, volumetric buildings challenges, and implications from innovative systems.
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In the first episode of Assembly Point’s Summer Series, the FPA’s Commercial Director, Chris Miles is joined by Paul Morell OBE, co-author of the recently published Independent Review of the Construction Product Testing Regime to identify any potential weaknesses in the system and make recommendations for improvement.
The two discuss the purpose of the government commissioned review and look at how the recommendations made in the report could provide greater assurance in the UK’s system for testing and certifying construction products. Chris and Paul also consider the shortcomings of the current system, its complexity and how it can be simplified, the conformity assessment process, and the procurement of compliant products.
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In the concluding episode of Assembly Point Series 2, Chris Miles, Commercial Director at the FPA leads the discussion on the recent release of the Fire Sector Federation’s white paper on developing a national strategy for fire safety.
Chris is joined by Dennis Davis, Executive Officer of the Fire Sector Federation; Adam Turk, CEO at Siderise Group; and Amanda Long, CEO of the Considerate Constructors Scheme, Building a Safer Future, and the Code for Construction Product Information.
The panel discuss the drivers behind the creation of the white paper, and where it fits into the overall landscape for fire safety in the construction sector. They finish by looking to the future of the industry and the necessary steps to driving cultural improvement.
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The penultimate episode of series 2 of Assembly Point sees Chris Miles, Commercial Director at the FPA joined by Professor Jim Glockling, Former Technical Director at the FPA; and Dr Jonathan Evans, Chief Executive Officer at Ash & Lacy, to discuss fire safety and innovation in the construction industry post-Grenfell.
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In the latest episode of Assembly Point, the FPA’s newly appointed Commercial Director, Chris Miles is joined by Helen Hewitt, Chief Executive of the British Woodworking Federation to talk about the importance of passive fire protection measures to the overall built-in fire safety of buildings.
They discuss how passive fire protection can be elevated to a higher-level consideration when designing, constructing, refurbishing, and maintaining a building, the role of legislation in maintaining fire safety products installed within a building, and whether regulation and third party certification are enough when it comes to complying with fire safety standards and requirements.
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Join Jonathan O’Neill OBE, FPA Managing Director as he speaks to Stephen Howard, Head of the FPA’s Fire Testing and Experimental Unit; and Dorian Lawrence, Managing Director at Façade Remedial Consultants. Together the panel discuss the implications of recent changes in legislation and guidance on making our buildings safer and what we still need to see to effectively assess and manage risk.
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Let’s get technical! Join the FPA’s Principal Consultant and suppression systems expert, Dale Kinnersley as he delves into sprinkler and watermist standards with Adrian Kay of Johnson Controls; Alan Crichton from BAFSA; and Stuart Lloyd of Zurich.
Representing between them an insurer, a trade body, and a contractor’s perspective, our panel discuss the impact of new standard BS 9251:2021 for residential sprinkler systems, the introduction of EN 12845-1 and EN 12845-2 for automatic sprinkler systems, and their impact on competence in the industry. They also consider the 3 available watermist standards, and the training being carried out. Our guests finish by sharing their thoughts on sprinkler versus watermist systems, and selecting the most appropriate water-based standard.
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The legal point of view
In the latest episode of Assembly Point, Jonathan O’Neill OBE, Managing Director at the FPA, is joined by Sailesh Mehta, Barrister and Head of the Fire Law Team at Red Lion Chambers to discuss the Grenfell Tower Inquiry and prosecuting those who bear responsibility for the tragedy. Together they consider the implications of the removal of the Building Safety Manager role from the Building Safety Act, coroners’ recommendations, and whether regulators are appropriately resourced under the current regime.
Have we learned our lesson?
For the second part of the episode, Jonathan speaks to Gill Kernick, Transformation Director at Arup University, and former Grenfell Tower resident. Gill outlines the role of regulations; the need for systemic change; and the responsibility that not only government, but industry has to play in implementing change to prevent further low probability, high consequence events.
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In the latest episode of Assembly Point, Jonathan O’Neill OBE, FPA Managing Director is joined by Chris Miles, Regional Business Director at UL to explore how building safety in the UK could benefit from international testing practices.
For the second part of the episode, Howard Passey, FPA Director of Operations speaks to Marcus Rees, FPA Senior Technical Consultant about the benefits offered by a fire strategy when designing, constructing, refurbishing or managing premises.
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In the latest episode of Assembly Point, Dr Jim Glockling, Technical Director at the Fire Protection Association and RISCAuthority is joined by Tom Roche, Senior Consultant at FM Global, and Mike Rooney, Chief Executive Officer at Resilience First, to explore resilience and whether it will ever be fully embedded if not mandated. The panel discuss the need for resilience within the commercial and service estates to survive disaster, the role of resilience in business continuity, and whether insurance alone is resilience enough.
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In our second episode of the series, Howard Passey, FPA Director of Operations is joined by Nick Coombe, Vice Chair of the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) Protection Committee & NFCC lead on Building Safety; Andy Frankum, Chair of the National Social Housing Fire Strategy Group, and Steve Emery, Fire Officer at Oxford University to explore vulnerable risks, specifically looking at social housing, care homes, educational settings, and the impact on evacuation strategies.
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The Fire Protection Association Director of Training and Digital Services, Claire Wright kicks off series 2 by talking to Jane Duncan OBE, Chair of the RIBA Expert Advisory Group on Fire Safety, and Clive Johnson, Group Head of Health and Safety at Derwent London PLC.
The panel discuss the competency requirements at each stage of the design and construction of a building and how these can be met. This episode also highlights key elements that need to be considered by all groups involved in the design, construction and maintenance of a building to ensure safety for the occupier.
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In the concluding episode for series 1 of our Assembly Point podcast, Howard Passey, Director of Operations at the FPA, marks the Fire Protection Association’s 75th anniversary by talking to Peter Caplehorn, Chief Executive of the Construction Products Association; Adrian Dobson, Secretary of the RIBA EAG; and Dennis Davis, Executive Officer of the Fire Sector Federation. The panel discuss the FPA’s own milestones and its work over the past 75 years, the turning points in fire safety in the UK, and what they hope to see in the next 75 years.
From the tragic circumstances at Bradford City Stadium to Lakanal House and Grenfell, there have been significant fires in the UK that have sent shockwaves across the fire safety sector – resulting in the introduction of new laws such as the Fire Safety Act. This episode highlights key events that have influenced change within the sector and what more needs to be done to avoid similar events occurring in the future.
The themes discussed in this episode are central to the FPA’s Know Your Building campaign. Find out more about the campaign by visiting: www.thefpa.co.uk/know-your-building. Watch this space for series 2 coming soon!
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