by business editor Trevor Sturgess

The fire service is to stop attending automatic alarm calls at business premises.

Kent Fire and Rescue Service has said that 99 per cent of 30,000 callouts in the past five years were false alarms, usually triggered by faulty systems.

It is no longer prepared to waste valuable time and resources on calls that divert fire engines from genuine emergencies. So it plans to axe them from April 2012.

The only time the service will attend business premises is when it receives a 999 call about an actual fire.

Although the plan is subject to consultation, it is likely to go through and KFRS is urging firms with automatic fire alarm systems to check they are working correctly before this happens.

Dust, insects and faulty equipment often cause the problem, and KFRS says it's up to the business to maintain systems in good working order.

Poorly designed or maintained systems can result in evacuation of the entire premises because someone has burned the toast, costing valuable time and money.

Fire safety experts are also concerned that frequent false alarms lead to complacency so that when one does sound, evacuation is slow and people put themselves at risk,

John Robertson, head of technical fire safety at KFRS, said: "We will be helping businesses and other premises to get ready for the changes to ensure their fire alarm systems and procedures are robust, as well as working with them to help reduce the number of unwanted calls these systems produce."