Wales · Wales · fire protection
AOV repairs and tests in Porth
Porth (Wales, Wales) has a published usual-resident population of 14,723 in 2019. Source: ONS towns 2019. That figure is residents, not a count of blocks with smoke vents. Coastal classification: Smaller non-coastal towns. ONS records population change of -2% between 2001 and 2019 for this built-up area. Wales has its own building regulations. A smoke vent is still judged against the fire strategy for that building, not against an English town page. Classification on that source: Small. Workplace profile in the ONS towns file: Residential. Deprivation band on the same file: High Deprivation.
Free area is not the hole
Louvre blades, frames and bird mesh steal geometric free area. The figure that matters is the ventilator’s declared free area, not the structural opening somebody measured with a tape. If the fire strategy names a free area and the installed vent’s data sheet does not meet it, that is a defect, not a rounding error.
Higher-risk residential blocks in England
In England, residential buildings at or above 18 metres sit in the higher-risk regime. Accountable persons ask whether the smoke control still does what the safety case says. We can test and record the vents. We are not the Building Safety Regulator and we do not write the safety case.
Automatic opening vents are life-safety smoke control, so this sits with fire protection and is quoted across the UK. Population figures are the published resident counts named above. They are not a survey of vents in Porth.
