Fire chiefs praise ALMO's chip pan campaign

Published by Max Salsbury for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Communities, Health

Fire chiefs have said that lives have been saved by an ALMO's chip pan campaign.

Northwards Housing launched an amnesty in December which asked tenants to ditch their old chips pans and gave them brand new deep fat fryers in return.

The 'Ban the Pan' campaign saw Northwards wardens remove over 130 chip pans from tenants' homes.

Last year, 29 residents were injured in cooking fires, a number of which were caused by chip pans.

The initiative has also saved Northwards money on costly renovations after serious fires.

Mike Stevens, Northwards director of neighbourhood services, said: “We want to do anything we can to reduce the number of fires we have in our homes.

“We initially launched the programme with just 100 deep fat fryers, but it proved really popular, so we extended it. We’re really proud that we’ve been able to make our homes safer and hopefully save lives.”

Chair of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Authority, Councillor David Acton, said: “We’re delighted Northwards Housing has been helping tenants replace old chip pans with brand new deep fat fryers.

“Chip pans are incredibly dangerous and we’re encouraging everyone to ban the pan and swap chip pans for safer alternatives.”

Northwards manages 13,500 homes in North Manchester.