Newham safety project calls for community-led fire prevention

The Newham Community Project, working in partnership with the London Borough of Newham and supported by the London Fire Brigade, has published the findings from a peer-led intervention that reached delivery riders and international students: groups at the highest risk of suffering e-bike battery fires due to economic pressure, unsafe charging conditions in HMOs and unregulated conversion kits being purchased online.

The project, which has trained rider ambassadors and delivered safety workshops across rider ‘hotspots’ and universities, has distributed over 5,000 #ChargeSafe guidance leaflets and demonstrated measurable behaviour change, including the increased use of legitimate chargers, faster spread of safety messages through rider WhatsApp networks and more reports of unsafe batteries.

The project was prompted by a devastating fire in Manor Park in October 2022. Ten international students were forced to escape through the windows of their building after an e-bike fire in a communal stairwell blocked their exit. Four of them were injured, three hospitalised and all ten required emergency rehousing.

Peer-led education

Rozina Iqbal, director of operations at the Newham Community Project who led the action research, said: “We’ve seen the human cost of these fires first-hand, subsequently helping riders to access emergency accommodation, replace lost documents and rebuild their lives after losing everything in seconds.”  

Iqbal continued: “Our efforts prove that peer-led education works. Riders aren't reckless. They’re economically constrained. When trusted voices in their own communities offer practical safety guidance, behaviours change quickly.”  

Further, Iqbal noted: “Newham cannot solve this issue alone. Greater Manchester has shown that a Food Delivery Charter is possible. London doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel. It needs to apply that proven approach here and resource London Boroughs like our own to roll out this community-led model across the capital.”

Co-ordinated framework

The report highlights that Greater Manchester has already implemented a comprehensive Food Delivery Charter, while London lacks a co-ordinated framework despite having one of the largest populations of delivery riders in the country.

The research underscores that community engagement is critical to preventing fires before they start. The project’s action research methodology – using workshop reflections, rider focus groups and ambassador field notes – showed that peer influence spreads faster than top-down messaging, particularly so among economically vulnerable groups working under extreme time and financial pressures.

Liberal Democrat London Assembly Member Hina Bokhari stated: “London is lagging behind, while the threat from unsafe e-bike chargers grows by the day. We need to see the Mayor of London and the London Fire Brigade step up their efforts to spread the word about just how dangerous unsafe e-bike batteries can be. That’s why the London Liberal Democrats are backing calls to bring in a Food Delivery Charter in tandem with rolling out this community-based approach across London Boroughs.”

Campaigners are calling for: 

*the Mayor of London and Transport for London to apply the Greater Manchester Food Delivery Charter approach in London and support the Borough-level replication of Newham’s proven community model 

*Government to resource enforcement and regulate unsafe modification kits and illegal modifications 

*delivery platforms to require compliant batteries and chargers during rider onboarding 

*universities to embed e-bike safety into student induction cycles