Last month, Member of Parliament for the Cities of London & Westminster wrote to both TfL Commissioner Mike Brown and Deputy Mayor for Transport Heidi Alexander asking them to clarify that fire safety hazards, identified by the London Fire Brigade, at Victoria Coach Station were being addressed. TfL had been given a deadline of March 23rd to make improvements by London Fire Brigade.
Yesterday, Nickie received the following response from Commissioner Mark Brown.
Dear Nickie,
Thank you for your email of 4 March 2020 about fire risks at Victoria Coach station (VCS).
I would like to assure you that we take the issue of fire safety extremely seriously.
We have now resolved 35 of the 39 areas of concern highlighted by the London Fire Brigade, with work in progress to finish or mitigate the four remaining areas.
As you would expect, we have acted to address all the issues raised at pace and are working hard to complete this as soon as possible.
This inspection and our fire risk assessment, which was undertaken and published only days prior to the inspection, identified several opportunities for us to strengthen our approach to managing fire safety at VCS. The London Fire Brigade accordingly agreed an extension of the 23 March deadline you mention until 15 December 2020. We would, of course, be happy to keep you updated on our progress.
As you know, our services are only operating for essential journeys by vital workers in the NHS and other critical services. VCS is now closed to the public as operators suspend temporarily all services to and from the coach station in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The station will reopen once operators resume services. In the meantime, our message to Londoners remains: Stay Home. Don’t Travel. Save Lives.
Thank you again for writing to me on this important matter
Yours sincerely
Mike Brown
On Commissioner Brown’s response Nickie commented, “It’s good to hear TfL have taken the London Fire Brigade’s report seriously and that 35 out of the 39 areas of concern have now been addressed. The final four areas must be addressed as soon as the pandemic we are currently facing is over to ensure passenger safety.”
