At Council tonight, Cllr Graham Morgan provided an update on the situation at Beech Rise and Willow Rise.
These are two privately owned buildings which are in an extremely poor condition and, due to serious fire safety concerns, both currently require a 24/7 ‘waking watch’ in order to keep residents safe.
The buildings’ management company informed residents, the Council and Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service in early May 2025 that they did not have the funds to carry out essential repairs and maintenance to the building for which they are responsible, nor did they have the funds to continue the waking watch they had been providing, and that their waking watch would end on 21 May 2025.
As the withdrawal of the waking watch would have meant that Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service would have had no option but to declare the buildings as legally unsafe to inhabit, the Council agreed to temporarily take over the waking watch in order to prevent 160 households from being made immediately homeless and to afford residents more time to secure alternative accommodation.
Since early May, the Council has been supporting residents to find alternative accommodation, lobbying Government on their behalf, and meeting with the various parties involved in the complex management and ownership of the buildings, in an attempt to see if the situation could be resolved so that residents would not need to vacate.
Unfortunately, it became clear that there was no immediate prospect of the safety issues being resolved and the Council is unable to indefinitely fund the waking watch.
The Council wrote to all residents on 26 June 2025 and advised them that the waking watch would be extended until 21 July, allowing those remaining residents a further period in which to seek alternative accommodation prior to the Fire Service’s prohibition order coming into force.
Cllr Graham Morgan said “A number of residents have already secured alternative accommodation, many with the support of the Council’s Housing team, and have already moved out. However, this has created another issue where unwanted furniture and rubbish has been left on the landings of the blocks. These are fire escape routes which must be kept clear at all times and could have resulted in the prohibition notice being served immediately. However, the Council stepped in to remove this, meaning residents didn’t have to move out immediately.”
To date, 83 flats are now vacant, 3 more vulnerable residents have been moved into temporary accommodation today. Of the remaining 74 flats that are occupied, 32 are in the process of moving, leaving 42. Of these, 26 have requested support with temporary accommodation. If, by the time the waking watch ends on 21 July any residents need temporary accommodation, the Council will sort this for them.
Cllr Morgan added “I know some people have asked why the Council doesn’t simply fix the fire alarm or repair the buildings so that a waking watch isn’t required and residents wouldn’t have to move out. Unfortunately, addressing the fire safety concerns is not simply a case of fixing the fire alarm. Further measures need to be in place to stop the spread of fire. To do all of this would require access to every flat and potentially take many months and, even if the fire issues are resolved, the general repair of the building would not have been addressed. These are not our buildings, and we have no legal right to do so, furthermore we understand from agents representing the Head Leaseholder that the cost of repairing them is likely to be several million pounds and would, in any event, require residents to vacate for a prolonged period.
“Our overriding priority has been, and continues to be, to ensure residents are safe and have a roof over their heads. Moving forward we will continue to engage with Government and those parties involved with the buildings’ ownership and management to understand what their intentions are for the buildings long term. But, to be clear this is very much a private sector issue, one of their making and one which they need to fix. We will, however, do all we can to support those individuals impacted as a result.”