New Legislations requiring action 23 January 2023
Starting January 2023, the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 (GOV.UK) made it a requirement in law for people responsible for high-rise residential buildings, such as landlords, contractors, and councils to provide information to fire and rescue services to assist them in planning for and responding to a fire in their building.
If you are the 'Responsible Person' for a high rise residential building (7 floors or above and two or more domestic dwellings,) please visit GOV.UK website to register your building. Please note this is a legal requirement and should be completed by 30 September 2023 for existing buildings.
The regulations require Responsible Persons in multi-occupied residential buildings to take specific actions depending on the height of the building:
- Some provisions apply regardless of building height
- More actions are needed once a building reaches 11 metres
- Further requirements are introduced when a building reaches 18 metres (or 7 storeys)
- The regulations make it a requirement in law for responsible persons of high-rise blocks of flats to provide information to fire and rescue services.
In all multi-occupied residential buildings with two or more sets of domestic premises, responsible persons will be required to:
- Fire Safety Instruction: You must provide clear and relevant fire safety instructions to your residents, including how to report a fire and any other instruction which sets out what a resident must do once a fire has occurred, based on the building's evacuation strategy
- Fire Door Information: You must provide residents with information relating to the importance of fire doors
In residential buildings with storeys over 11 metres in height, responsible persons will be required to:
- Fire Safety Instruction: You must provide clear and relevant fire safety instructions to your residents, including how to report a fire and any other instruction which sets out what a resident must do once a fire has occurred, based on the building's evacuation strategy
- Fire Door Information: You must provide residents with information relating to the importance of fire doors
In residential buildings with storeys over 11 metres in height, responsible persons will be required to:
- Fire Doors: undertake best endeavours to carry out annual checks of flat entrance doors. You must undertake quarterly checks of all fire doors in the common parts.
In high-rise residential buildings (18 metres or 7 storeys or more), responsible persons will be required to:
- Building Plans: provide Surrey Fire and Rescue Service as your local service, with up-to-date building floor plans by electronic means and to place a hard copy of these plans alongside a single page building plan which identifies key firefighting equipment, in a secure information box on site.
- External Wall Systems: You must provide us with information about the design and materials of a high-rise building's external wall system and to inform us of any material changes to these walls. They will be required to provide information in relation to the level of risk that the design and materials of the external wall structure gives rise to and any mitigating steps taken. Please see additional information below.
- Lifts and other key firefighting equipment: You must undertake monthly checks on the operation of lifts intended for use by firefighters, and evacuation lifts in your building. You must check the functionality of other key pieces of firefighting equipment. You will be required to report any defective lifts or equipment to us as soon as possible after detection and if the fault cannot be fixed within 24 hours. You must record the outcome of checks and make them available to residents.
- Secure information boxes: You must install and maintain a secure information box in the building which must contain the name and contact details of the responsible person, and hard copies of the building floor plans.
- Wayfinding signage: You must install signage visible in low light or smoky conditions that identifies flat and floor numbers in the stairwells.
Information which must be shared
Plans
Floor plans and Building Plan
Regulation 6 of the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 require responsible persons of high-rise residential buildings in England to share up-to-date plans of the building with the fire and rescue service. The plans will be used by operational fire-fighters during an incident and need to be clear, simple and easy to use.
Electronic sharing of plans
The responsible person should send electronic copies of the plans to sfrsbuildingplans@surreycc.gov.uk. When sending plans, please ensure the name and address of the building to which the plan relates is clearly identified.
We would ask that you please provide these to us with the following format considerations:
- preferred file type is PDF or dwg
- preference is a single file containing all floors
- maximum size 20mb (otherwise egress switch should be used, free account required)
Storage of hard copies
The responsible person is also required to provide a copy of the plans inside the premises' secure information box. The plans should be sized to fit on A3 paper and, where necessary, printed in colour to assist in easy identification of the plan symbols.
To ensure a copy of the plans can remain with the incident commander at all times as well as be used by firefighters inside the building, at least two copies of each plan should be provided inside the secure information box. Recognizing how the plans will be used and the conditions they may be exposed to, plans should be laminated to ensure they remain usable throughout the course of an incident.
Floor Plans
Floor plans must show the location of specific equipment as defined by the Regulations. The plans must clearly identify and distinguish between the following:
- Passenger lifts
- Lift for use by firefighters
- Evacuation lifts
- Inlets / outlets for dry-rising mains
- Inlets / outlets for wet-rising mains
- Smoke control systems
- Suppression systems
A plan will need to be prepared for each floor; where floors are identical it is permissible to prepare a single plan providing the floors to which the plans refer to are clearly indicated. However, it is the preference of Surrey Fire and Rescue Service that each floor has a separate plan, regardless of layout, so that the individual flat numbers can be easily identified on each floor.
Building Plan
A separate single page plan must be provided which shows the building and its immediate surroundings. The building plan will enable firefighters to orientate themselves upon arrival and must provide information on access and key firefighting both inside and outside the building.
The full list of information to be provided on the building plan is defined in the Regulations and includes all of the following:
- the environs of the building;
- details of the use of the building, for example for commercial or residential purposes;
- access for fire and rescue appliances;
- the dimensions of the building;
- information on the number of storeys of the building and the number of basement levels (if any);
- information regarding the presence of maisonettes or scissor section flats;
- inlets for dry-rising mains;
- inlets for wet-rising mains;
- the location of shut-off controls for any sprinklers;
- access points for the building;
- the location of the secure information box;
- the location of the controls for any smoke control system;
- the location of any firefighting shaft;
- the location of main stairways in the building;
- the location of the controls for any evacuation alert system.
Additional Guidance
For further guidance on the preparation and storage of plans, including examples of floor and building plans, refer to The Code of Practice for the Provision of Premises Information Boxes in Residential Buildings.
Design and materials of external walls
Regulation 5 of the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 require responsible persons of high-rise residential buildings to prepare a record of the design of the external walls and share it with the fire and rescue service. The purpose of providing this information is to assist with operational pre-planning and to provide information that will be of value to responding crews at the time of a fire.
As well as providing details of the materials used in the wall construction, responsible persons will also be required to provide information on the level of risk of fire spread that the external wall structure poses, and any steps that have been taken to mitigate these risks.
Responsible persons should complete the online form to provide fire and rescue services with the necessary information required by the regulations. To assist in gathering the information captured by the online form, a PDF version of this form can be downloaded here.
Reporting faults and repairs of lifts and essential fire-fighting equipment
Regulation 7 of the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 requires responsible persons of high-rise residential buildings to undertake monthly routine checks of specific fire safety equipment. The equipment covered by this requirement is:
- Lifts for use by firefighters or evacuation lifts
- Automatic door release mechanisms
- Evacuation alert systems
- Fire detection and alarm systems
- Rising mains
- Smoke control systems
- Suppression systems
Where faults with any of this equipment are identified, the responsible person must take steps to rectify the fault. If the fault cannot be rectified within 24 hours, then the fault must be reported to the fire and rescue service. The fire and rescue service must be informed once the fault has been rectified.
This information will assist fire and rescue services by highlighting faults with equipment, which both residents and firefighters may rely on for their safety, so that it can be factored into their operational response.
Reporting the fault
Faults with the above equipment that cannot be rectified within 24 hours should be reported using the online fault form. Upon completion, a fault reference number will be provided – you should keep a record of this to for when the equipment has been repaired.
Reporting the repair
Faults that have been rectified can be reported using the online repair form. Providing the fault reference number given at the time it was originally reported will allow the repair to be easily aligned with the fault and reduce the amount of information that must be provided.
To assist in gathering the information captured by the online forms, pdf versions of both the fault form and repair form are available to download.
Person completing the report
The forms should only be completed by persons acting in an authorized capacity on behalf of the responsible person. If you are a resident and/or leaseholder who has identified concerns with your building, in the first instance you should contact the Responsible Person for your building. If you want to report a fire safety complaint, do not use this form and contact us via sfrsbuildingplans@surreycc.gov.uk
Next steps
In relation to the Fire Safety Act 2021, it is important that you now review the guidance about when and how to update your fire risk assessment. This has been published by the Home Office and outlines how to use the Fire Risk Assessment Prioritisation Tool to start forming your fire risk assessment review prioritisation strategies.
The Home Office has produced a series of fact sheets which provide more detailed information on what the Regulations mean in England.
