How we've improved our building and fire safety in council houses and high-rise buildings, and improvements we plan to make in the future.
We're committed to:
- providing safe homes for all our council tenants
- maintaining and improving building and fire safety in all our buildings
What we've done so far
Planned works
- Fitted fire doors with seals, to plug any gaps that fire or smoke could travel between.
- Fitted sprinklers in some of our high-rise buildings.
- Used fire retardant paint when communal areas are redecorated.
- Designed and installed full coverage fire alarm systems in some of our high-rise buildings.
- Put fire safety floor plans and escape plans in the main foyer of our blocks
- Upgraded the bin chute seals to improve fire performance in addition to the sprinklers in the bin rooms.
- Invested in urban community gardens to help residents build better relationships with their neighbours and encourage community engagement with other matters, such as improving safety.
- Invested in safety adaptations such as alarms and pendants, to help residents identify and respond to an emergency within their buildings.
- Ensured all high-rise buildings received a fire risk assessment in the past 12 months and completed over 3,000 fire risk assessment remedial actions.
- Carried out 6,500 home condition surveys since January 2025, to understand their condition and safety.
- Caught up on safety checks; completed more than 4,000 electrical inspections and reduced outstanding repairs by 2,500.
- Completed the installation and populated the contents of Premises Information Boxes (PIB's) in all high-rise buildings
Policy and resident engagement
- Consultated with residents, so we could complete our Person-Centered Fire Risk Assessment's. These assessments support the active monitoring of residents and allow for ongoing support as their needs change.
- Reduced the number of Waking Watches in the high-rise buildings from 35 to 0, due to the completion of alarm installations and cladding remediation programmes.
- Secured funding to help us improve energy efficiency, cladding and alarm systems from:
- Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund
- Waking Watch Replacement Fund
- RPEEPs grant
- Building Safety Fund
- Cladding Safety Scheme
Recently published
- December 2025 housing newsletter. Residents were encouraged to report any building safety issue in their home.
- New versions of the pdf Fire Safety policy(390 KB) and the pdf Clear and safe escape routes policy(318 KB) to improve overall building safety.
- The pdf Resident Engagement Strategy for Building Safety(2.46 MB) , making sure residents are consulted about activities that relate to and improve their building safety.
Avon Fire and Rescue
We've also worked with Avon Fire and Rescue to:
- make sure they have floor plans, escape plans and other relevant information, to familiarise themselves with our buildings in the event of a fire
- help us improve building and fire safety standards, by completing audits and collaborating to develop and deliver improvement plan actions.
- agree and plan activities and policies relating to fire safety
- agree a forward plan for visits to high-rise buildings in 2026
What we plan to do in the future
We plan to make further improvements to building and fire safety in council owned buildings.
Projects include, but are not limited to:
- additional surveys of all properties, such as housing condition surveys, structural surveys
- improving energy efficiency in our properties, such as installation of thicker insulation and more efficient heating sources
- neighbourhood investment in parks, car parks and community areas
- roof and window replacements
- bathroom and kitchen refurbishments
- fire door upgrades
- improved passive and active fire protection
- cladding remediation and new build properties
We'll continue working with organisations outside the council on our cladding programme for high rise buildings.