Calls for gas safety reform

Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning claims 50 lives every year and it’s time the law on gas safety was tightened up, writes Stephanie Trotter, president & director of CO-Gas Safety, in this week’s NLJ. Known as the ‘silent killer’, CO emitted by faulty cookers, boilers and other appliances puts 200 people in hospital each year while about 4,000 suffer low-level exposure, according to a Parliamentary report. Trotter, a non-practising barrister, makes the case for regulatory change to require all landlords to carry out an annual service or test for CO as well as installing alarms.