GAS AND ELEC NEWS

£40,000 fine for landlord who did’nt have a gas safety certificate By admin November 6th, 2014 Magistrates have fined a landlord £40,000 after he failed to make sure one of his properties underwent a mandatory gas safety inspection. Trafford Magistrates’ Court heard how on several occasions the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) warned Tariq Ali, that the gas safety record on the Persia Street property in the Lancashire town had expired and he needed to arrange an inspection. The law stipulates that all rented properties with gas appliances have to be checked by a Gas Safe-registered engineer once a year, but Mr Ali ignored the warnings, the court was told. Magistrates heard the gas installations at several of Mr Ali’s properties had been classed by Gas Safe engineers as either immediately dangerous or at risk in 2011. On 12 September 2013 the HSE issued an Improvement Notice on the Persia Street property ordering him to arrange a gas safety check within a month but the deadline passed and no such inspection had been made, the court heard. Mr Ali admitted breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 and was ordered to pay the £40,000 fine plus another £18,054 in prosecution costs.

The new future homes standard will ban fossil fuel heating systems in all new houses from 2025, the chancellor said today. Read more: Spring Statement: UK slashes 2019 growth forecast The measure will help homes reach “world-leading levels of energy efficiency,” the Treasury said, while it future proofs newly built homes with low carbon heating. “We will introduce a future homes standard mandating the end of fossil fuel heating systems in all new houses from 2025, delivering lower carbon and lower fuel bills too,” chancellor Philip Hammond told parliament. It comes on the back of the Prime Minister’s industrial strategy which sets out to halve energy use in new buildings by 2030. Maria Connolly, partner at law firm TLT which specialises in clean energy, said the chancellor’s plan “looks to be a good proposal”. “But we should also be looking at how we can better incentivise new housing developments to incorporate clean energy technologies such as solar photovoltaic or wind turbines, combined with storage capacity,” she added. Meanwhile boiler installer Hometree’s chief executive Simon Phelan said it was important to ensure customers do not end up paying more. The chancellor also revealed plans to increase the amount of so-called green gas in the grid in a bid to reduce Britain’s reliance on natural gas. Around 0.5 per cent of gas in the UK’s grid currently comes from green sources, such as biomethane, said Jesse Scharf at the Green Gas Certification Scheme. Read more: Hammond calls for CMA probe into digital advertising market “We’re very pleased to see this get some attention at a high level, it is a big challenge to green the gas grid, it needs investment and political will,” Scharf told City A.M. James Court from the Renewable Energy Association said: “The chancellor was right to state that accelerating the decarbonisation of the gas grid is necessary if climate targets are to be met. Although no definite proposals were outlined, the acknowledgement of the need to green the gas network is a promising start as this offers a low-cost way of utilising existing infrastructure to decarbonise.”

Two landlords have been ordered to pay more than £30,000 for breaching fire safety and over-occupancy licence conditions at their House of Multiple Occupation. Barnet council officers discovered that the home in Golders Green, north London, had no fire alarm or emergency lighting systems during a routine inspection. They found that six people were living at the address, which was only licenced to house five people. Landlords Mark Goldsmith and lian Hatuka were prosecuted by the council. They were found guilty of failing without reasonable excuse to comply with their licence conditions and were ordered to pay £15,420 each, including the council’s costs. Councillor Gabriel Rozenberg, chairman of the council’s housing committee, says: “All too often landlords think that their legal obligations are met when they submit their HMO licence application. However, all licences have conditions that landlords are legally obliged to comply with to ensure the safety of their tenants. I am delighted that the courts support our approach to driving up housing standards for tenants.”