Since 2013 it has been a legal requirement for all houses of multiple occupation (HMO) – which does not include purpose-built flats such as high-rises – to have a fire certificate that has to be renewed every three years.
Figures released to the JEP earlier this year showed that as of the middle of June, a total of 174 of the 432 applications for certificates received to date were still in progress.
Of those, 51 properties were yet to be visited to determine if they were houses of multiple occupation in need of a certificate to ensure they met safety standards.
This week Paul Brown, deputy chief fire officer for the Fire and Rescue Service, said there were currently 170 premises waiting for fire certificates and a further 30 were waiting to have their first visit.
He said: ‘Our guys continue to work really hard to bring down the number of premises still waiting for fire certificates to be issued. We have made some good progress in recent months and we are slowly bringing that number down.
‘We have spent a lot of time looking at our process and examining everything to make sure we stamp out any unnecessary delays.
‘The law change in 2013 was the catalyst for us and there have been a number of changes since the revisions to the law were made.’
Mr Brown confirmed that no extra personnel had been employed to deal with the backlog.
