ONLY two-thirds of council houses in York have had hard-wired smoke detectors installed, the local authority has confirmed.

A quirk in the law means although private landlords by law have to install smoke detectors in their properties, social landlords like councils do not.

City of York Council, which is writing to all its tenants regarding fire safety in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, has confirmed that its records show it has installed smoke detectors in two out of three of its 8,500 properties.

A spokesman said: “We go above and beyond the legislation by hard-wiring smoke detectors in homes as part of our rolling Tenants’ Choice modernisation programme and by checking smoke detectors in all the homes we visit for annual gas services and when properties are empty.

“While we’ve installed detectors in over two thirds of our council homes and understand that many tenants have installed their own, they will be considered as part of our ongoing policy review.”

At a meeting on Tuesday, the council’s executive member for housing Cllr Sam Lisle said he believed the council should be fitting detectors in all its homes.

He told members of a housing scrutiny committee: “I know that’s an ambition shared by officers, and I will be feeding that back to the executive.”

Yesterday it emerged seven tower blocks in four local authority areas across the country had been found to be covered in similar aluminium cladding to Grenfell Tower.

However, York council has no residential blocks more than five storeys high, and has now confirmed that none of its other blocks have that type of cladding.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the council’s head of building services Mike Gilsenan also confirmed his department was checking local authority schools to make sure they too are free of the material.

Findings are still coming in, a spokesman said yesterday, and staff are checking certificates with builders and with the government’s Priority School Building Programme, which has been behind some new school buildings in the city.

Mr Gilsenan also faced questions over the fire risk assessments and reviews the authority carries out, and it has emerged the council has slipped behind on its own self-imposed standards.

There is no legal requirement for how often these have to be checked, but in York council staff review the situation in stairwells and communal areas in “general needs housing” once every three years. This year, however, staff need to review 350 sites to get them back into line with that target.

The council’s director of housing Martin Farran has since said: “All blocks with communal areas are required to have a fire safety risk assessment however there is no fixed legal period for reviewing those assessments.

“Our approach in York, in line with best practice, is to review them annually for older people’s homes, sheltered schemes, hostels and schools, and review the assessments every three years for general needs housing.”

Yesterday the council issued a statement saying in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire it is writing to all its tenants about fire safety.

The letter explains the council is developing a new fire safety policy for its homes, and is reviewing fire safety procedures across its housing. Any changes will be dealt with urgently, in a programme overseen by the chief executive Mary Weastell.