Fire Brigade plans £350 call-out charge for lift rescues after it attends 6,430 in a year

Four fire engines were called to tackle the blaze

Simon Freeman7 October 2013

London Fire Brigade is to charge landlords of tower blocks a £350 call-out fee to rescue people stuck in lifts.

Fire crews have freed residents of high-rise flats from broken lifts 6,430 times in the past 12 months, answering an average of 17 calls a day.

Of those, only 57 were genuine emergencies, in which the person trapped was at medical risk.

It has cost the service — which is facing a £45 million budget cut — around £2 million in time and resources.

Owners, including councils, housing associations and private landlords, will now be charged £290 plus VAT for any more than two non-emergency call-outs to their property per year. The fire service hopes the charge will give landlords an incentive to keep elevators in working order and has issued a list of the capital’s 25 “shoddiest” lifts.

The worst offender is Wendover, a council block in Walworth’s sprawling Aylesbury Estate, which fire teams attended 27 times in the past 12 months — more than once a fortnight.

Southwark Council, which runs the block, blamed the breakdowns on “historic under-investment”, which it is now trying to address with £9 million of improvements. But a spokeswoman said most of the 788 lifts in the borough were made-to-measure, making parts difficult to track down.

Ian Wingfield, cabinet member for housing, said: “Our lift call-outs have reduced significantly but I completely sympathise with residents who have had to suffer this inconvenience.

“We believe that prevention is better than cure and recognise the historic under-investment.”

Rescue teams were called to a block on Albany Street, Regent’s Park — where three-bedroom flats sell for upwards of £500,000 — 13 times in the past 12 months.

James Cleverly, chairman of London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, said: “The brigade attends 17 rescues a day which prevent crews being available to attend genuine emergencies. Firefighters will always attend a call-out where it is a real emergency but less than 1% of lift rescues are medical cases and it is only right that we recover taxpayers’ hard-earned money.”