Paul Terry wrote on 13 October 2010 19:46:54 ...
In , d
writes
I think you'll find that phoning the emergency services trumps any company
rules.
Indeed, it is laid down in Section 5.7 of The Fire Precautions
(Sub-surface Railway Stations) Regulations 1989, that any person
employed on the station who suspects an outbreak of fire must notify the
fire brigade.
No, the 1989 Regulations don't actually say that. The Fire Precautions
(Sub-surface Railway Stations) (England) Regulations 2009, which
replaced the 1989 regulations but are similarly worded in this respect,
say in regulation 5(3): "When any member of staff reasonably suspects
that there is an outbreak of fire in the premises, immediate steps must
be taken to activate the warning system referred to in regulation 6(3)
and call for the assistance of the fire and rescue authority."
There is no legal requirement for the person discovering the fire
personally to dial 999. The requirement is that *someone* must
immediately activate the local warning system (sound the fire alarm for
the station), and that someone must *call for* the assistance of the
fire brigade. That could be done by a very short message to a Network
Control Centre who would relay that to whichever emergency services were
needed. Don't forget that on LU the emergency services will include
their own ERU. The person on the spot needs to make a very quick call
and then get back to handling the situation around the fire.
I don't see anything in the regulations that prevents LU having a
procedure that channels all such requests through a centre that can
provide the necessary coordination where (a) there are multiple
incidents, and/or (b) the locations are initially uncertain, e.g.
between stations.
Re Bill's query: "sub-surface" in the regulations means basically any
station platform which is enclosed and underground.
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)