Fire Safety Matters Podcast – Episode 21

The Fire Safety Matters Podcast is hosted by the magazine’s Editor Brian Sims and Western Business Media’s CEO Mark Sennett and kindly sponsored by The Fire Safety Event, which takes place at the NEC in Birmingham from 7-9 September 2021.

Episode 21 is framed by Brian’s interview with Anthony Walker, a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Anthony is a Chartered surveyor and fire engineer who helps property owners and managers alike to maximise the management, maintenance and investment of property and assets. This entails providing advice and support to obtain a clear understanding of the existing position and recommendations on action needed right through to the successful delivery of works on site.

As a diligent business professional, Anthony likes to explore new ways of working that create effective and efficient solutions and is a very firm believer that improvement and learning should be a continuous process.

Anthony kick-starts his interview with Brian by detailing what Sircle is all about as a business and also outlining his own role within the organisation.

One of his recent – and, as always, tremendously informative and engaging – LinkedIn posts was entitled ‘Fire Safety: Not just cladding.’ This is a subject we’ve discussed at great length within the pages of Fire Safety Matters and, of course, on the magazine’s website. On that basis, Anthony revisits the key points of his post for the benefit of our readership.

Fire surveys

Another issue that has been raised in the pages of Fire Safety Matters on numerous occasions is the debate around the formal requirement for qualifications for those individuals tasked with conducting fire surveys and fire risk assessments. What kind of structure would Anthony like to see put in place? Listen to Episode 21 of the Fire Safety Matters Podcast to find out.

Speaking from his own perspective and with his own role at Sircle very much in mind, what key challenges does Anthony envisage impacting fire safety across the next 12 months?

EWS-1 surveys are regularly mentioned in the news. Clive Betts, the chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee in Parliament, recently wrote to the Government on continuing issues with the EWS-1 Forms process. Anthony outlines his own thoughts on this vitally important matter.

Finally, Chapter 8 of The Hackitt Review (and specifically pages 102 through until 106) covers in detail the need for a ‘golden thread’ of information that will allow access to up-to-date building and fire safety-related information. Does Anthony have any strong views on this subject? Again, you’ll need to listen to Episode 21 of the Fire Safety Matters Podcast for the detail.

Fire risk assessors

When talk turns towards ‘all matters legal’ in relation to fire safety, there’s no better expert to reference and learn from than our regular Fire Safety Matters Podcast contributor Warren Spencer (managing director at Blackhurst Budd Solicitors). In point of fact, Warren has prosecuted more cases under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 than anyone else. The list of such cases with which he has been involved, in fact, now stretches to over 200.

On this episode of the Fire Safety Matters Podcast, Warren focuses his attentions on the belief that associations need to take the lead when it comes to the competency of fire risk assessors.

Fire suppression

Our final guest on Episode 21 of the Fire Safety Matters Podcast is Yusuf Muhammad, the co-founding director and chief design officer at Plumis.

A Master’s graduate of both the University of Nottingham and Imperial College London, Yusuf established Plumis alongside colleagues Paul Thomas and Yung Woo Choi. Across the years, the trio have worked in tandem on a series of solutions for fire suppression.

In 2009, the company’s popular Automist fire extinguishing solution won the James Dyson Award. It was also selected as one of The British Library’s Top 15 inventions of the last decade.

During his discussion with Brian, Yusuf focuses his attentions on the subject of product testing and also outlines some typical applications for the Automist system.

As always, the Fire Safety Matters editorial team analyses the latest major news stories emerging from the fire sector here in the UK. There’s also a keen focus on The Fire Safety Event and FSM Live, the magazine’s one-day digital conference that runs on Wednesday 3 November.

Listen to the Fire Safety Matters Podcast

You can listen to the Fire Safety Matters Podcast for free on iTunes, Spotify or Google Play. To download the Fire Safety Matters Podcast on iTunes or Spotify, all you need to do is enter the term ‘Fire Safety Matters’ into the search box of your chosen platform.

Alternatively, you can listen to the Fire Safety Matters Podcast online at fsmpodcast.podbean.com or via our YouTube channel by clicking here.

*If there are any specific subjects you would like to see featured in an upcoming Fire Safety Matters Podcast please do contact us. You can do so on Twitter by using the hashtag #FSMPodcast. Alternatively, send an e-mail direct to bsims@westernbusiness.media