Fire Sprinklers Week

Mary Glindon Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

It is a great honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) for securing this important debate during fire sprinkler week.

I want to illustrate the importance of fire sprinkler systems with a sad story about a factory in my constituency. The Findus food factory in Longbenton, North Tyneside, was officially opened by the late Princess of Wales in the 1980s. By 1995 it was providing jobs for 1,500 local people. Over subsequent years, the business changed hands several times and, sadly, the number of workers reduced by two thirds. None the less, it remained an important employer in the constituency.

By 2009, the factory had become Longbenton Foods, and the owners were providing much-needed employment for 420 local people. The factory remained busy, still producing frozen meals under the Findus label—in particular, the famous Findus crispy pancakes. It was one of the few businesses to continue to have a licence to produce them. I can see that I have brought some memories back for a number of people in the Chamber.

Work in the factory came to a sudden halt on 6 January 2009, when a huge fire broke out in the main food production area. It took six fire engines and 34 firefighters more than three hours to bring it under control. Fortunately, all the staff were safely evacuated, because of the fire alarm system, and no one was hurt in the blaze. In fact, Dave Brown, who was the group manager at Tyne and Wear fire service, praised the fire crews for an excellent job in tackling what he described as a difficult fire. Although there were several production halls at the factory, they were all smoke damaged and put out of production. The fire caused an estimated £20 million of damage and left almost all the workers redundant.

At the time, my predecessor in the seat, the right hon. Stephen Byers, and the then Minister for the North East, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown), worked with the council and others to minimise the social and economic consequences for the local community. Longbenton Foods secured a grant of £3.4 million from the regional development agency One North East to rebuild and reopen the business. The factory reopened in 2010, and in June that year, confident in its future, I paid tribute in my maiden speech to the efforts of all involved in saving the business. However, by December the business was in trouble. I worked with the owner to try to save Longbenton Foods, but despite valiant efforts by the administrator, the business could not be sold as a viable enterprise, and this time the job losses were final.

Although the ultimate failure of the business could not be directly attributed to the fire, it could be said that its negative influence in disrupting business at a crucial time meant that the business could never fully recover its former success. Had the fire not happened, the business would have continued to meet the demands of a healthy order book and would have provided continuous employment for all the staff.

I know the experience in North Tyneside is not unique, as has been shown today, and that businesses across the country are hit by fire all the time. At its worst, the upset can lead to loss of life; at the very least it can lead to loss of jobs and businesses, and can have an environmental impact. Only 100,000 litres of water were used to fight the Longbenton Foods fire, although often many millions of litres are used to douse a single fire, according to a study carried out by Bureau Veritas on behalf of the Business Sprinkler Alliance. That report showed that the impact of a fire in a commercial building is always felt long after the fire has been put out, as was the case with the Longbenton Foods factory.

The worst thing is that had the Longbenton Foods factory been fitted with sprinklers, the fire would have been doused or controlled before the fire brigade arrived. The factory would most likely have remained open for business, millions of pounds of public money would have been saved and, most importantly, 420 people would still be in work. No lives were lost, thank goodness, but hundreds of livelihoods were ruined. Another company now owns the factory, but massive investment is needed to get the place back into production. That is of little comfort to those who lost their jobs several years ago.

I commend the work of the BSA and would like to reiterate the following specific actions that are required from the Government. I ask for non-regulatory measures to promote the benefits of fire sprinklers to businesses and deregulatory measures so that sprinklers are no longer classified as plant and machinery for the purposes of business rates, as well as a review of approved document B on fire safety in the building regulations, so that the cost-benefit analysis considers the economic, societal and environmental costs of fire alongside the current life safety considerations.

I hope the Minister will reply favourably to those requests for action. I do not want to see a repeat of what has happened at Longbenton Foods. A positive response would be fitting and timely in fire sprinkler week.