A leading window restrictor manufacturer is calling on a group of MPs to drive forward legislative change that could see UK hotels brought into line with the health and social care sector’s stringent approach to window safety.
Eric Collins, managing director of Leicestershire-based The Jackloc Company, has written to all five Sheffield MPs following the death of a five-year-old boy who fell from an open window on the 9th floor of a hotel in the city. Tragically the child and his family were being housed in the hotel having fled their home country of Afghanistan for the security of the UK.
Mr Collins is calling on the Sheffield MPs, plus his constituency representative Alberto Costa MP, to help focus attention on the issue. His letter to them states:
“We have built a growing network of window manufacturers, fitters and restrictor companies who want to see legislative change in public buildings to ensure that stringent safety standards are set – and met – for window safety. There is a legislative requirement from the Department of Health, Health Building Note 00-10 Part D, to have window restrictors fitted in health buildings so why not other public risk environments such as hotels and high rise buildings?”
Figures released by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) some four years ago revealed that more than 4,000 children under the age of 15 were injured falling from windows each year in the UK and the Child Accident Prevention Trust (CAPT) says that one child under the age of five is admitted to hospital every day after tumbling from a building. US research suggests that falls from three storeys or above account for 90% of child-fall fatalities, with the average age of childhood falls from windows being five years old.
The Travelodge Hotel Group has installed Jackloc window restrictors in its 20,000 UK hotel rooms. To encourage more businesses to follow suit, Jackloc is offering all hotels in the UK complimentary virtual site surveys or a discussion to understand possible solutions.
Companies can contact Eric Collins directly at eric.collins@jackloc.com to discuss further.