Fire at the White Hart hotel, Lewes.

[Freddie Goodwin.]

Presumably, if the candle was too close to the chair before Freddie got there, the chair would have caught alight sooner or later, then it would have been the establishments fault, obviously. It seems likely to me, that he must have moved the chair closer to the flame as he sat down, and if that's the case, he should have been aware of it.

The point is that the candle was sufficiently close that moving the chair back (to get up, let somebody by) the candle became a danger. Surely, under risk assessment that should be taken into account.

The incident in itself could quite easily have been dealt with on the night but what really irked was the complete indifference by the manager (when he daned to appear) and his staff. Somebody even said to the recepionist "You don't really care, do you?" to which her reply was a curt "no".

From a H&S pov, should not an incident/accident report have been made? It certainly wasn't done whilst any witnesses were there so, if it has been then it would have been done solely by the hotel manager.

I've read a few reviews of the hotel today and, apart from the general shabbiness, what seems to come through is the surly attitude of the staff. Don't they realise, more than ever, that their business and jobs can be at risk from such an attitude?

 

[Mr Burns]

I know a gentlemen who had a problem, when the staff didn't care, with the Top Rank Ballroom