Cameron House inquiry clarifies fire safety duties for hotels

Simon Midgley and Richard Dyson died on 18 December 2017 after fire spread in the hotel situated on the banks of Loch Lomond in Scotland. The fire began in the concierge cupboard of the hotel after a night porter stored hot embers from an open fireplace in the hotel in the cupboard alongside combustibles.

The owners of Cameron House and the porter were both convicted of safety offences related to the fire in 2021.

Sheriff Thomas McCartney, who led the fatal accident inquiry, determined that there were “defects in the system of working at the hotel which contributed to the accident resulting in the deaths”.

The defects found included the careless disposal of ash; the lack of a written standard operating procedure re-enforced by staff training; the absence of appropriate equipment for safe disposal of ash; ash bins in the service area being full and the lack of a “coherent system” to regularly empty them; the absence of instructions to staff relating what to do with ash when bins were full; and the presence of combustibles within the concierge cupboard, notwithstanding that the fire service had warned that they should be removed.

Other matters were considered relevant to the circumstances of the deaths too.

The guest list was left inside the hotel by the night manager when the hotel was evacuated, requiring a fireman to retrieve it. This delayed efforts to ascertain who was missing.

An independent assessment of fire safety at the hotel was also altered to state that all of the recommendations identified in the previous report had been recorded as complete, without evidence to support that or independent verification.

Voids in the walls and ceiling of the hotel’s main building also enabled undetected fire to spread from the cupboard into other parts of the building, the sheriff found.

The building and fire safety standards as they apply to hotels and, in particular, older buildings, were also cited as relevant to the circumstances of the deaths.

The sheriff made a series of recommendations in his inquiry report (122-page / 717KB PDF). Expert in fire safety regulation Katherine Metcalfe of Pinsent Masons said the recommendations should be given careful consideration by dutyholders in the UK hotel sector, as well as for other commercial property, particularly historic buildings which do not meet modern building standards.

Fire safety legislation for commercial premises is broadly the same throughout the UK – the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 and the Fire Safety (Scotland) Regulations 2006 in Scotland and the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety Order) 2005 in England and Wales. The legislation places duties in respect of fire safety on employers and on those in control of ‘relevant premises’. Duties include an obligation to carry out a risk assessment to identify fire safety risks and put in place reasonable mitigation measure to address identified risks. Emergency response arrangements are required.

Sheriff McCartney’s recommendations underline the importance of making sure emergency response arrangements work in practice. They should be properly tested regularly to make sure of this, and this must be reinforced by appropriate training and instruction.

The sheriff also made a number of significant recommendations to the Scottish government around fire safety in historic buildings, which will require reform of building standards. Automated sprinkler systems should be a requirement for future conversions of historic buildings.

The sheriff also recommended that the Scottish government convene an expert advisory panel involving a range of stakeholders to consider the special risks posed by existing buildings through varying standards of workmanship, age, and variance from current standards. He said the panel should involve those with expertise in the spread of fire and performance of materials, the assessment of fire risk in existing premises, the application of the British standards and other guidance to existing buildings, passive and active fire protection measures, conducting firefighting operations, and the construction of complex or multiphase historic buildings and their conversion for new uses.

Metcalfe said: “These are a significant recommendations which, if adopted, would enhance the safety of users of historic buildings and also protect the fabric of those buildings. The challenge will be in striking the balance between achieving higher standards of fire safety and preserving the character of our historic buildings. Existing buildings can present unique challenges requiring a sophisticated, bespoke approach to the consideration of risk and appropriate mitigation.”