‘Fire-trap’ hotel in York fined £120,000

The Lamb and Lion Inn near York city centre has been fined £120,000 for putting at least 1,300 peoples lives at risk after being described as a ‘fire trap’.

Karen Galloway of North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service told York magistrates that the hotel was warned three times in a year that the fire alarm system they had installed needed attention.

Fire officers had to force the hotel to close while its fire safety measures were brought up to standard.

Galloway told the court that a guest who stayed at the hotel between December 2016 and March 2017 described it as a “fire trap”. During the same period a further 1,300 people had stayed in the hotel.

Galloway said when fire officers inspected the hotel on March 9, 2017, after an anonymous tip-off, they found the fire alarm was not working.

There were also a number of additional fire safety problems at the 12-bed hotel, including faulty fire doors, a smoke hazard that could block the only exit from the upper floors and flammable items stored without fire protection.

Ben Williams, for Sloping Tactics, which owned the hotel at the time, said it had been “patching” up the alarm problems from January 2016 and only realised the alarm had to be replaced two days before the visit by fire officers.

Williams denied that the company had delayed replacing the fire alarm for financial reasons or had purposefully ignored fire safety.

The company pleaded guilty to three charges of breaching fire safety regulations between December 2016 and March 2017 and was fined £120,000 with £2,863.39 costs and a £170 statutory surcharge.