Gas safe register carries out Gas Safety Raids in Oldham

Gas Safe Register recently took part in a series of multi-agency raids on commercial properties in Oldham town centre, in a bid to tackle gas safety and a range of other issues, including illegal immigration, environmental health breaches and abuse of benefits.
Investigators worked with Greater Manchester Police, The Department for Work and Pensions, UK Border Agency and local authority officers in the licensing, environmental health and housing departments to uncover suspected legal infringements.

Gas Safe Register’s role was to investigate the safety of gas appliances in these properties following concerns raised that many were dangerous and potentially leaking gas.

The raids ran over two evenings last month and targeted eight properties, most of which were catering establishments. Inside four of the five properties that had gas installed, gas could be smelt and had to be referred to the emergency services provider, resulting in the gas supply being disconnected. In the fifth property, three of the four appliances were found to be immediately dangerous and were disconnected.

“By working with local authorities, these big multi-agency raids give us the opportunity to inspect properties we wouldn’t have access to ordinarily,” said Phill Brewster, investigations manager for Gas Safe Register.
“These were not abandoned properties, all were being used commercially. The fact that four of the five were found to have gas leaking is very worrying. I’m just glad that we managed to intervene before anyone got hurt."

The investigations team carry out around 1,000 inspections of gas work every year and over half of these are identified as being unsafe. However, most of these investigations come about as the result of customers contacting Gas Safe Register with concerns that their appliance is faulty.
If you know of any commercial buildings with unsafe gas work, please report it to the Register.