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McCarthy and Stone made a “goodwill payment” of PS40,000 for Oak Court, a building in Manchester that lacked compartmentation on the roof.
After receiving a call from the senior legal counsel of the company, a tenant at the location, which was featured on BBC TV’s Rip-Off Britain in the past, retracted an article he had submitted to LKP addressing this issue. The call came within hours after LKP contacted McCarthy and Stone for an explanation of the article.
The company denied that it had urged the tenant to retract the article.
These issues were raised by LKP in a letter sent to Paul Denton of Homes England and John Tonkiss CEO of McCarthy and Stone.
Oak Court in Withington in Manchester was constructed in 1994. The freehold is owned by Fairhold Homes which, in turn, appointed FirstPort as the manager of the site. This practice has been common in McCarthy and Stone older sites.
Residents themselves expressed concern about the fire safety of the building. A report, commissioned in 2021, described the risk as “tolerable”.
McCarthy and Stone informed LKP in November 2022: “For context, and to better understand the risks, FirstPort’s FRA [Fire Risk Assessment] of Oak Court 2021 found that the development and loft areas were rated as ‘tolerable,’ which is the lowest rating out of nine in the FRA. The document you hold is the FRA, which states: “Tolerable (2) Due to the time available, there is an extremely low risk of serious injury, but minor injuries are possible.”
The roof was inspected again and “inadequate compartmentation standards in the loft” were found. This would cost a lot of money to fix.
This issue is similar to the one at Cestrian Court, Chester-le-Street in Co Durham.
Irene Cockerton (87) died in September 2011, after a fire broke out at Gibson Court in Hinchley Wood, Surrey. The building was also constructed by McCarthy and Stone. FirstPort, however, pleaded to failings in fire policy, training and procedures, and received a fine of PS360,000 (£360,000) for April 2017.
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