Publicana Ltd, management company for the Little George pub has been convicted of breaching Fire Safety law by North Wiltshire magistrates.

The offences were discovered after Wiltshire Fire and Rescue attended an incident at the pub and a subsequent investigation discovered that fire doors and fire exits had been screwed shut or left propped open and that escape routes were obstructed. They also found that the Fire Protection Systems had not been maintained and they failed to carry out a Fire Risk Assessment. In addition to these failures there were no protection policies or prevention measure in place. Publicana Ltd was also charged with failing to provide suitable and sufficient information for the licensee it had contracted to run the pub on its behalf.

Publicana Ltd was ordered to pay £15,000 in fines and all costs.

Julian Parson, Group Manager of Wiltshire Fire & Rescue Services technical fire safety department said – “What this case has shown very clearly is that management companies always have a duty to ensure that public safety is not compromised, even if they have sub-contracted someone else to act as licensee.”

“since these offences came to light, the Little George pub has changed its management and subsequent Inspections have shown that the issues highlighted by this case have been addressed. In addition, Publicana Ltd, which was co-operative throughout the investigation has introduced stringent new management procedures to ensure that something like this never happen again in the premises it is responsible for.”