Fire Safety Changes

Following the dreadful fire at the Grenfell Tower a number of new fire safety measures are being implemented and the owners or managers of buildings will need to familiarise themselves with them and act accordingly.

The Fire Safety Act 2021 which came into effect on 16 May 2022 now require a responsible person for all multi-occupied residential buildings to ensure the fire risk assessment for the building now includes the external walls of the building and the entrance doors to individual flats.

The responsible person or their appointees can use a Fire Risk Assessment Prioritisation Tool accessed via www.gov.uk to decide how to prioritise these buildings and to update fire risk assessments. The tool gives each of the listed factors a numerical value to give an overall score. Buildings will be ranked in one of five tiers – tier 1 is very high priority and tier 5 is very low priority.

Other key changes include PAS 9980:2022 and external wall construction and if these techniques or cladding materials present significant risks of a fire spreading then a Fire Risk Appraisal of External Wall Construction will be required.

The Fire and Safety (England) regulations 2022 will implement a number of other changes from 23 January 2023. This includes all multi-occupancy residential buildings with two or more sets of domestic premises , responsible persons will be required to deal with Fire Safety Instructions and Fire Door information.

Where a residential building with storeys is over 11 metres in height the responsible person will also be required to make annual checks of fire doors and quarterly checks of fire doors in common parts.

Where a residential building is high rise (over 18 metres or 7 or more storeys, the responsible person will also be required to deal with:

• Building plans and provide the fire and rescue service with an electronic building floor plan plus a hard copy which identifies key firefighting equipment in a secure box onsite.
• External wall systems which detail the design and materials of the external wall system and any changes, the risk level and steps taken to reduce the risk.
• Carry out monthly checks on lifts and other key firefighting equipment and report any defective equipment to the fire service as soon as possible and record the outcome of checks which should also be made available to residents.
• Each building should have information boxes installed which maintain the information for the building including the name and contact details for the responsible person.
• Signage in stairwells which is visible in low light or smoky conditions which show the flat numbers and floor numbers.

There are clearly a number of measures that those who own or have responsibility for residential buildings need to action now as well as preparation for the additional measures coming into force in 2023. If you would like support with managing residential buildings please get in touch with our team today.  Click Here for further information.