Thank you for your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
We can confirm that Essex County Fire & Rescue Service (ECFRS) does hold the information you have requested.
Questions and final response:
Question 1 - How many up-to-date building and wall plans have you received since October 2023, in your jurisdiction?
ECFRS have accepted 22 Building Plans since October 2023 that meet the required standards.
Question 2 - It is a legal requirement by the Government that wayfinding signage be installed and updated in high-rise buildings. Whose responsibility is it to ‘safeguard’ this, and what processes (if any) are in place to ensure these requirements are met?
Our process to ensure the requirements are met, is by conducting a Fire Safety Audit
Question 3 - How many high-rise buildings are served by you, in your jurisdiction?
We are currently aware of 157 High Rise Residential Buildings (HRRB) in the area that ECFRS cover.
You may be interested to access published responses to similar requests that we have responded to and published on our Transparency website: FOI 4664 / May 2024 / High Rise Residential Buildings EIR 1619 / August 2023 / High Rise Building Plans since Jan 2023 Y
ou will notice that in the previous response FOI4664, it was stated that there were 204 HRRB in our area. This differs from the current figure – 157, the difference in the figures is due to the 6-9 storey category, which contains a mix of mid- and high-rise buildings.
After a review of this category, 6 storey buildings have been removed as these are predominantly mid-rise.
The total number of HRRB’s has reduced as a result.
As we gather more information on building heights, this figure may change.
We hope you find this information useful.
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Incident and other data is published on our transparency site. Incident Data (essex- fire.gov.uk).
Please note that the response and data released to you as part of this request will be published on our website http://transparency.essex-fire.gov.uk/.
All requests will be anonymised and no personal information including contact details will be disclosed as part of this process.
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Thank you for your interest in Essex County Fire and Rescue Service, we hope this satisfies your request.
If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the right to apply for an internal review.
Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of your original email and should be sent to informationgovernance@essex-fire.gov.uk or sent to our postal address: Internal Review, Information Governance Team, Kelvedon Park, Rivenhall, Witham, Essex CM8 3HB.
Please ensure you quote the above reference number in all future communications.