Publicana fined over fire safety breach

Temporary pub management company Publicana has been fined £15,000 after being convicted of fire safety breaches at the Little George pub, Chippenham.

Publicana pleaded guilty to four charges and fined £5,000 for each at a hearing at North Wiltshire Magistrates' Court this week. The early plea reduced the fine by £5,000.

The pub's breaches of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 included fire doors and fire exits that had been screwed shut, fire doors that had been propped open, obstructed escape routes and failures to maintain the fire protection systems.

The offences were discovered when Wiltshire Fire & Rescue Service attended an incident at the pub on 5 October 2008.

Charges were brought against Publicana as tenants at the time. Charges are also being pursued against the licensee who Publicana had contracted to run the pub.

Publicana's offences were based on the failure to carry out or record a fire risk assessment, failure to have effective policies for protection and prevention and the failure to provide sufficient information to the sub-contractor.

"It is rare for a Fire and Rescue Service to undertake prosecutions but, on this occasion, the offences were so severe we felt it was in the public interest to pursue charges," said technical fire safety group manager Julian Parsons.

"What this case has shown very clearly is that management companies always have a duty to ensure that public safety is not compromised, even if they have sub-contracted someone to act as licensee."

The Little George has since introduced new procedures and changed management.