Southampton's building stock is about as mixed as it gets: dockside warehousing, high-rise residential blocks, hospitality venues, retail units and commercial offices, often sitting close together across the city centre and port. Southampton City Council alone manages 21 high-rise buildings, and that's before accounting for the private commercial and industrial premises spread across the city and into Eastleigh, Totton and the wider Hampshire coast.

Every one of these buildings relies on fire and smoke dampers to stop fire and smoke travelling through ventilation ductwork between compartments. A damper that's corroded, obstructed, or simply never been tested won't close when it's needed, and most building owners only find out during a fire risk assessment, an insurance audit, or worse.