Kirklees Council chases up fines against ITSELF for false fire alarms in its buildings, the Examiner can reveal.
West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service introduced a system of charges in April 2014 for firms that make more than three false alarm calls in a 12 month period.
During its first 30 months the scheme – which levies a fine of £375 plus VAT each time – had raked in £444,590 from 1,262 charges.
Among the guilty parties was Kirklees Council. Several of its buildings were logged as having made “false activations” with 43 call-outs to the fire service. Of these 13 were “chargeable events” bringing in revenue of £5,508.
Debt recovery procedures and invoicing is handled by Kirklees Council on behalf of the fire service, meaning the authority pursues and fines itself for false alarms.
There were also five call-outs to Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust but none were charged for.
The fines – or cost recovery – were introduced to drive down the number of false alarms by encouraging those responsible for fire alarms to manage them in an appropriate manner. Following the launch of the charging policy attendances to non-domestic false alarms dropped by 9%.
A fire service spokesman said the reduction “ensures that our crews are available for genuine emergencies when needed.”
