twitter facebook linkedin youtube instagram flickr search Menu It’s our business to help businesses and other organisations keep their staff, residents, visitors and buildings safe from fire. Doing this helps businesses to thrive and makes the West Midlands stronger. Scroll down to learn more. what is it for? who are they for? how to book useful links When a commercial business has a fire, local fire crews visit neighbouring or similar companies to advise on how they can avoid the same happening to them. The visits take around 10-15 minutes. What do you get during the free visit? Firstly, we’ll ask if you’d like us to give you advice about preventing a fire in your business. We recognise how demanding running a business can be so, if you’re interested in the advice but can’t fit us in right away or would rather we spoke with another member of your team, our crews will be able to arrange a convenient time to revisit. What happens? we check the information we hold on your business, in case the worst happens and we need to contact you quickly we provide fire prevention advice to try to keep your staff, buildings and contents safe. It’s all about trying to stop a fire starting in the first place – by not overloading electrical sockets, for example, separating sources of ignition from combustible materials, general housekeeping and arson prevention. It’s up to you to act on this ‘goodwill’ advice. This is not a legislative visit and crews will not check whether you comply with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, so it’s important you still conform to all fire safety regulations while we will offer you free advice to help you avoid a fire, we can also signpost you to other helpful and free business continuity resources. Fire Risk Assessments are a legal requirement Whilst we can’t do a fire risk assessment for you, there’s lots of guidance around how you can do one. Click to visit our fire safety page for more information. Other useful links! Fire Safety | Safe and Well (for the home) | Fire Risk Assessment Training We offer this this free advisory service to every business. However, we actively want to help small, independent businesses who may not have access to paid services or advice. What is not covered during a Safe and Strong Visit? Our crews do not offer advice on legislative fire safety such as occupancy numbers, fire alarm systems or staff training. Remember, if you’re the owner or manager of a business, it’s your responsibility to have a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment in place. If you employ five or more people, you must record the significant findings of that fire risk assessment. There’s more information on our fire safety page. Did you know? 50% of all businesses experiencing a disaster and which have no effective plans for recovery fail within the following 12 months Other useful links! Fire Safety | Safe and Well (for the home) | Fire Risk Assessment Training Booking a Safe and Strong visit is as simple as getting in touch with your local fire station to agree a suitable time for them to visit your business. Visit our fire stations page for contact details. If you’d like more details about our Safe and Strong visits, please speak to your local station or contact us on 03300 589 000. If you or your staff don’t have working smoke alarms at home, or have concerns about fire safety at home, our crews can offer a service called Safe and Well. Ask the crew for more information or check out our Safe and Well page. Other useful links! Fire Safety | Safe and Well (for the home) | Fire Risk Assessment Training Arson Protection 47% of all fires attended by UK Fire and Rescue Services are started deliberately. How easily could someone start a fire within or around your building? For tips to prevent arson on your premises or to find out more about the cost of Arson to your business visit https://www.nationalfirechiefs.org.uk/Arson Automatic Fire Alarms (AFA) and Unwanted Fire Signal Reduction (UFS) Our firefighters can’t be in two places at once, so if they’re attending a false alarm it means they’re not able to respond to our most serious incidents. Although we’ve been working with partners to reduce the number of false alarms – about a third in recent years – there’s still a lot of work to do. Find out more about this and our ‘call challenge’ policy here. Better Business for All Better Business for All (BBfA) brings together businesses and regulators to consider and change how local regulation is delivered and received. It involves the creation of local partnerships to identify the issues facing local businesses and shape the provision of effective support services to them. It gives the businesses in a defined area access to help that is tailored to their needs, making it easier for them to ‘get it right first time’. The gov.uk website also provides further information about Better Business for All Business Continuity and Business Disruption Any incident, large or small, whether it is natural, accidental or deliberate, can cause major disruption to your organisation. HM Government has produced a free to download booklet that helps you prepare for emergencies. This is called the Business Continuity Management (BCM) Toolkit. BCM is about identifying those parts of your business that you can’t afford to lose- such as information, stock, premises, staff – and planning how to maintain these, if an incident occurs. Here is where you can download the booklet. Commercial Training We are experts in fire safety and offer a range of quality training courses covering different areas. Our highly skilled teams can offer courses to both small and large businesses and you can find out more about what we offer on our training section. Councils Your local council can often provide a wealth of information to help businesses and may have services in your area to assist you. We’ve listed the local council business support areas for each council below: Birmingham City Council Coventry City Council Solihull Council Sandwell Council Dudley Council Wolverhampton Council Walsall Council Crime Reduction Working with the police and other key partners we are targeting the key drivers of crime to stop crimes happening in the first place. You can find out more about West Midlands police and how to get in touch with them here https://www.westmidlands-pcc.gov.uk/ Federation of Small Businesses The Federation of Small Businesses are a not-for-profit organisation which offers members a wide range of vital business services including advice, financial expertise and support. Fire Safety We provide guidance on fire safety, covering areas such as fire risk assessments, we also provide easy access to government guides in our business section and you can find out more about fire safety in the workplace on the gov.uk website. Local Chambers of Commerce A chamber of commerce (or board of trade) is a form of business network whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to advocate on behalf of the business community. They are available across 3 areas, we’ve listed them below: Black Country Chamber of Commerce Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce Local Enterprise Partnerships The Black Country Local Enterprise Partnership (BCLEP) aims to create the conditions for enterprise to flourish resulting in greater economic prosperity across the Black Country area. Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP aims to create jobs, grow the economy and raise quality of life in Greater Birmingham and Solihull. The Coventry and Warwick LEP has a Growth Hub and Champions scheme. It aims to help businesses grow their bottom line by providing impartial, commercially focused and joined-up advice that’s free. Petrol and Fireworks Storage West Midlands Fire Service can offer advice on the safe storage of fireworks and petrol. We also provide licenses and certificates for storing these products. You can find out more about certificates and licenses here. West Midlands Combined Authority The West Midlands Combined Authority is led by the Mayor of the West Midlands and the leaders ofthe seven constituent local authorities. The leadership also includes the chairs of the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) which are business-led organisations that help build relationships between businesses and local authorities. They can provide advice and support in a variety of areas of business, transport, economy and growth within the West Midlands. Other useful links! Fire Safety | Safe and Well (for the home) | Fire Risk Assessment Training Join WMNow today WMNow is a free community messaging system that delivers up to date information from fire and partners direct to your inbox. From updates on fires, to local news and events, and safety advice, don’t miss out on information that’s important to you – sign up now at https://www.wmnow.co.uk/ WMNow helps keep thousands of people across the West Midlands up to date with regular community alerts. Language Translate: Privacy, terms, data and cookies Website Privacy Policy | Cookie Policy | Organisational Privacy Policy | Website Terms and Conditions © West Midlands Fire Service Corporate Communications 2019 twitter facebook linkedin youtube instagram flickr ACCESSIBILITY