New bespoke fire alarm systems to be installed in council housing schemes across Swindon
The council say its for the safety of elderly and vulnerable residents at 14 sheltered and supported housing schemes across the borough
A new bespoke fire alarm system is to be installed in council housing schemes for elderly or otherwise vulnerable residents at a cost of up to £2.2 million.
Swindon Borough Council, which runs 14 sheltered and supported housing schemes across the borough, has tendered a contract for between £2m and £2.2m to install the new fire alarm systems in all of them.
It says the council has a new system for the schemes designed and drawn up: “SBC has previously commissioned a specialist consultant to design fire alarm systems for SBC sheltered and supported housing schemes to meet requirements.
“These designs have now been taken up to concept/spatial design stage, identifying the component locations, wiring loops for the alarm systems and performance parameters.”
Now the council is looking for a company to design, make and install the system, with the work starting at the end of March next year and expected to take 18 months to complete, with no extension of the contract.
In its tender, the council says: “We now seek to appoint a specialist contractor to carry on from the consultant’s developed design stage; from technical design through the supply/manufacture, installation, handover and use of a compliant operational fire alarm system.”
The successful company will be: “Responsible for the end-to-end process of ensuring that fire alarm systems are correctly installed, configured, and operational in accordance with the requirements of this specification, industry standards and regulatory requirements.”
The tender inviting companies to bid for the contract has been put out on the government website Gov.uk and also sites such as Bidstats and ContractFinderPro.
Bids should be made by November 12.
Earlier this year, the council was criticised quite severely by the Regulator of Social Housing, particularly with regard to the quality of safety provision in its houses and flats, which would include the sheltered and supported housing schemes.
The regulator said the council was “unable to report accurately on the presence of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, was unable to track or monitor faults from electrical safety checks and has more than 800 overdue fire safety actions, the majority of which were overdue by more than a year.”
The council has already started work on those problems in September 2024 and by the time the regulator’s report was published in May, the cabinet member for housing, Councillor Janine Howarth said 76 per cent of cases had been addressed by March this year.
She added: “More than 1,590 council homes now have new alarms that detect heat, smoke, and carbon monoxide as part of a four-year £10.5m upgrade programme that began last September.”