Fewer fire safety notices given to buildings in Hertfordshire despite national fears

It comes as the Fire Brigades Union said decades of deregulation and complacency have created a "crisis in building safety".

Figures from the Home Office show 1,094 fire safety inspections or audits were carried out by the Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service in the year to March.

Of these, one resulted in a formal notification, which is issued in the most serious of cases or where fire safety non-compliance was raised previously but was not resolved.

It was down from seven notices the year before.

Across England, 2,823 formal notices were issued last year, the highest since 2012-13.

Matt Wrack, FBU general secretary said: "Decades of deregulation and complacency have created a crisis in building safety. Ignored warnings result in tragedies, as we saw with the Grenfell Tower fire."

He added: "Deregulation has been the dominant ideology in Westminster, driven by the lobbying of private business interests.

"Meanwhile, fire safety has been hit by brutal cuts with fewer inspectors and overstretched resources."

He said the Government must rebuild the UK’s fire safety regime and "fix the building safety crisis".

Of the formal notices handed out across England last year, 446 were for purpose built flat buildings.

Meanwhile dozens were for hospitals, public buildings and schools. None of these were in Hertfordshire.

The figures also show there were 43 prosecutions in serious cases on non-compliance, a significant jump from 24 the year before.

There were no prosecutions in Hertfordshire last year.

A Government spokesperson said: "It is vital that people feel safe in their homes. Fire and rescue authorities enforce the necessary fire safety legislation and when building owners fail to comply, this can include pursuing prosecution.

"We will take action to improve building safety, including accelerating cladding remediation and holding those responsible for safety issues to account."

Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner said the process of removing unsafe cladding from thousands of at-risk buildings has been too slow. More than 100 people were evacuated from the eight-storey building in East London on Monday (26 August).