Plans to install carbon monoxide detectors fall behind target (From The Northern Echo)

Plans to install carbon monoxide detectors fall behind target

5:00pm Saturday 20th October 2007 in News

PLANS to install carbon monoxide detectors in all Richmondshire District Council-owned properties have fallen behind target.

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, who are in charge of installing the detectors, will not meet targets set by the council, after flooding during the summer stretched their resources.

The news comes at the end of Carbon Monoxide Week, a national attempt to raise awareness of the so-called 'Silent Killer' which, on average, claims the lives of 50 people a year in the UK.

At a meeting of the council's Community and Environment Overview and Scrutiny next Thursday, members will be asked to review the situation after a report highlighted carbon monoxide detector instalment as 'under performing'.

The report said not one detector had been installed during 2007, leaving 550 to be completed by April 2008.

But senior fire officer Trevor Lund said the council's figures were not accurate, and the fire service had installed 90 detectors since the start of the year. But he admitted this figure was just a third of what they had hoped to achieve.

He added: "It is down because we lost eight weeks through the flooding in Humberside, everything went pear-shaped and we lost the capacity to do any community safety work."

Mr Lund said it was highly unlikely the service would hit the target of 550 by April 2008.

"Not at this rate," he said. "We might be on track to do half of them, but this is a three-year project. I'm sure we will be able to make up some of the deficit but we are always at mercy to operational incidents."

Hugo Westhoff, head of maintenance and improvements of community services, said: "This is the first I've heard that they will not meet these targets. We will have to meet with the fire brigade to speed things along."

Richmondshire District Council and North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service set-out to work in partnership on the project, with the council pledging to spend 20,000 a year on the detectors, and the fire service fitting them in homes.

Last year, 500 detectors were successfully installed in the homes of those deemed most at risk, the elderly and disabled.

Mr Westhoff said: "This is an additional safeguard to the council tenants and another step towards making their homes safer."