Building safety

Jump to:

• High rise residential building safety
  • Your building safety manager
  • How you can help us
  • Keeping you informed
  • Know your plan
  • Supporting evacuations

High-rise residential building safety

Keeping our customers in high-rise residential buildings (HRRBs) safe is a priority for us. That’s why we have a dedicated team who manage any fire and structural safety risks in our HRRBs.

An HRRB is defined by the government as a building with at least seven storeys or a height of 18 metres or more, containing at least two residential units.

Your Building Safety Manager

If you live in a HRRB, your building has a designated Building Safety Manager (BSM). You can find out who your BSM is, and how to contact them, on the ‘Building Safety’ notice board in your buildings entrance foyer.

Your BSM visits regularly (at least monthly) to carry out a formal audit to ensure all hazards and risks are being managed.

You can get in touch with them at any time to discuss any concerns you may have about the safety of your building or home by emailing buildingsafety@stonewater.org

How you can help us

Under the Building Safety Act, if you live in an HRRB, you have a legal duty to help ensure the safety of your building for you and your neighbours. There’s more information about this in your building’s information pack or on the poster on your building’s notice board.

It’s important we all work together to help keep your home safe. To help us, please:

• Keep communal areas free of personal items and rubbish
• If we contact you about access to your home, either to carry out a landlord’s gas safety inspection or to check your fire door, work with us to agree a suitable appointment
• Keep your flat entrance fire door closed and in good working condition (avoid wedging it open or obstructing communal fires doors)
• Avoid obstructing or damaging anything that’s been fitted in your building to detect or extinguish a fire. 

If you notice anything in your building that doesn’t seem right, please report it to us immediately and we will investigate.

Keeping you informed

We organise several events/meetings throughout the year where you can talk to our Building Safety team, and our wider housing team, about the management of your building. We always welcome feedback and ideas on how we can make improvements to the way we work.

If we ever need to change how we manage your home or decide to undertake major building works, we will always consult affected customers first.

Know your plan

If there is a fire, all our HRRBs have a ‘defend in place’ fire strategy, more commonly known as a ‘stay put, if safe’.

This means if the fire is in your home, you should leave your property and call 999 immediately. If the fire is elsewhere in the building, you’re advised to remain in your home, unless you are affected by heat, smoke or flames (or feel unsafe and wish to leave).

All our buildings are designed to stop the spread of a fire from one property to another, including between a flat and the communal areas. This means that you should not be impacted by a flat fire in a different part of the building.

All blocks have had their external walls assessed and no remedial works are required.

Supporting evacuations

All customers living in HRRBs will be contacted and offered a person-centred fire risk assessment (PCFRA) before April 2026.

These assessments help identify customers who require assistance if they need to evacuate their home in the event of a building emergency. Following these assessments, we will then work with customers to develop an emergency evacuation plan (EEP) which will make sure they’re able to safely evacuate their building in the event of an emergency.