Housing group installs poison fume alarms

9:20am Thursday 16th August 2007

LIVES could be saved after a housing association agreed to fit 13,000 carbon monoxide alarms at all its North-East properties.

Affordable housing provider Home decided to install the Kidde Fyrnetics alarms in its rented houses after the deaths of two children in a Greek hotel last year and a carbon monoxide incident at Crookhill Primary School, Gateshead.

The fitting of the alarms, at a cost of £300,000, is now under way, with 2,900 detectors already fitted in the Sunderland and Hartlepool areas.

However, all of Home's properties, from Berwick, Northumberland, to Darlington, will have an alarm by March next year.

Ron Goodrum, Home's head of planned maintenance, said: "We already have a robust maintenance programme in place, but, as a socially responsible landlord, we decided carbon monoxide alarms would provide an extra level of protection for our tenants.

"Our partnership with Kidde Fyrnetics will result in all of our rented properties in the North-East being fitted with carbon monoxide alarms."

More than 50 deaths and 200 serious injuries are attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning each year.

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