More fire safety notices given in Greater Manchester

It comes as the Fire Brigades Union said decades of deregulation and complacency have created a "crisis in building safety".

Figures from the Home Office show 1,681 fire safety inspections or audits were carried out by the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service in the year to March.

Of these, 433 resulted in a formal notification, which is issued in the most serious of cases or where fire safety non-compliance was raised previously but was not resolved.

It was up from 266 notices the year before and the highest figure in the past decade.

Across England, 2,823 formal notices were issued last year, the highest since 2012-13.

The figures were released just days after a huge fire engulfed a block of flats in Dagenham, London. Fortunately there were no fatalities.

Matt Wrack, FBU general secretary said: "Decades of deregulation and complacency have created a crisis in building safety. Ignored warnings result in tragedies, as we saw with the Grenfell Tower fire."

He added: "Deregulation has been the dominant ideology in Westminster, driven by the lobbying of private business interests.

"Meanwhile, fire safety has been hit by brutal cuts with fewer inspectors and overstretched resources."

He said the Government must rebuild the UK’s fire safety regime and "fix the building safety crisis".

Of the formal notices handed out across England last year, 446 were for purpose built flat buildings. This included 75 notices in Greater Manchester.

Meanwhile dozens were for hospitals, public buildings and schools.

In Greater Manchester, five formal notices went to hospitals, 10 to public buildings and one to a school.

The figures also show there were 43 prosecutions in serious cases on non-compliance, a significant jump from 24 the year before.

There were no prosecutions in Greater Manchester last year.

A Government spokesperson said: "It is vital that people feel safe in their homes. Fire and rescue authorities enforce the necessary fire safety legislation and when building owners fail to comply, this can include pursuing prosecution.

"We will take action to improve building safety, including accelerating cladding remediation and holding those responsible for safety issues to account."