If attendance at the HMICFRS press briefing is a marker of interest in the first inspections of fire in over ten years, then it is safe to say that interest is on the up. In December 2018 just FIRE, PA and the BBC turned up, but one year later, a whole newsagent of mainstream media sat around the table to hear what HMI Zöe Billingham and HMI Matt Parr had to say.
And the reason? London. It was London Fire Brigade’s turn to be inspected and, given the mainstream media’s general lack of interest beyond the M25, it would have been easy to think that they were the only service in tranche 3. That of course was not the case; 14 other services inspection reports were published too.