Fire Safety Matters Podcast - Episode 42

**Brian Sims** (0:16)
Welcome to episode 42 of the Fire Safety Matters Podcast, where we bring you the latest news, views and opinion from across the UK's dedicated fire industry. My name is Brian Sims, and I'm the editor of Fire Safety Matters Magazine. We're delighted that this podcast is sponsored by the Fire Safety Event, which runs at the NEC in Birmingham from the 8th to the 10th of April, 2025 Fire Safety Matters is once again serving as the lead media partner for the exhibition. To register for the show, visit www.firesafetyevent.com. As always, I'm joined on the Fire Safety Matters Podcast by my colleague Mark Sennett, the CEO at Western Business Media and also the founder of Fire Safety Matters magazine. Hi Mark, how are you doing?

**Mark Sennett** (0:52)
Yeah, I'm great Brian, how are you?

**Brian Sims** (0:53)
Very well, thanks Mark. I'm working on the March print edition in which we will be covering our special show preview for the Fire Safety event, of course, as always. And in the standard magazine, we're looking at fire alarms and detection, social housing, emergency evacuation and emergency lighting. We're also carrying three features on the brave topical subject of the fire risk posed by lithium ion batteries. And of course, the next article focused on the campaign for safer furniture. So, printed digest for the readers there.

**Mark Sennett** (1:19)
Yeah, it's interesting, you know, I was working overseas last week, came back yesterday. And I know this is the biggest issue that you work on annually in terms of Fire Safety Matters, but I also finally got the chance to read the Fire Safety Matters Guide to UK Fire Safety, which you published in December. I read it cover to cover and it's interesting, you know, you said in there that we were going to take the safer furniture campaign another step forward. And again, we are in the next issue. So, you know, that was obviously discussed in that, in your forward, in fact, in the guide.
And, you know, these are really big print editions that we're doing here. I'd strongly urge anyone listening to sign up to get copies of Fire Safety Matters for free or to look at a digital copy of our back archive, particularly the FSM guide. I mean, it covers everything, doesn't it, Brian? From alarm detection to suppression to regulation, training and competency, evacuation and emergency lighting passive. It was probably a bit of a labour of love for you, wasn't it, the guide?

**Brian Sims** (2:20)
It was. It's a long project, Mark, because you know, we planned this about six months out from actually going to press. And obviously it's collating lots of information. Obviously, there's a massive editing process to go with that as well. But it's a great publication. I think it really does this year shine a light on the entire industry. And that's what we wanted, is a cohesive and coherent publication as the heart of the fire safety sector, really.

**Mark Sennett** (2:41)
Yeah, absolutely. And it has an exclusive survey, the results of that with nice infographics and analysis of the survey. And it says really exclusive content. It talks about the state of export. It talks about the state of diversity. It talks about training. It talks about recruitment. It talks about its market forces and problems. And if associations are actually stepping up to the plate, in your opinion, and in our audience's opinion. So it's a great read. You can see it on our website. Now, as I always say, you don't have to wait for this podcast to come out to get the latest news, prosecutions, products, and services from the fire safety sector. You can go to our website, which is www.fsmatters.com.
Now, listen, I don't necessarily expect you to remember that. Just go into a search engine, Fire Safety Matters, and up we come. But the website is well worth a visit. Yep, you can get daily updates in there, but you can also go to our webinar section and sign up to our upcoming webinars. Look at our back archive of webinars for free. Sign up to get, as I said, print or digital copies of the magazine as well. Look at our archive of back issues on there. Or you can sign up to our weekly e-newsletter so you can see the latest news sector email straight to you. You can of course follow us on X or LinkedIn as well. Brian posts all the stories through there. But you don't just wait for this podcast to come out. We have great fun in this podcast picking out highlights of what's happened in the last month. But you know, month is a long time in this sector. And I was just saying to Brian, just in the last week, there's been a number of big news stories coming out. So please do go to the website fsmatters.com to have a look. And Brian, you know, that's probably where we should start. We always start with the news. And I'm going to throw it over to you this time to give us what was the biggest story you wanted to cover this week?