A guide to the new Fire Safety Building Regulations (Residential)

There are several new Building Regulations for fire in residential buildings. The first thing to be clear on is which statutory regime will your building work fall under?

If your building is over 18m in height and has two or more residences it will be a High Risk Building (HRB) under the control of the Building Safety Regulator (BSR)

Any work whether new build, extension or alteration will have to go through the Gateway Process. You will need approval of the proposal (Gateway 2) before you can commence work (Gateway 3). This process deliberately predicates against work being carried out under the traditional form of Design and Build contract. The application has to be supported by a number of Prescribed Documents:

1. Competence Statement
2. Build Regulation Compliance Statement
3. Fire and Emergency File
4. Construction Control Plan
5. Change Control Plan
6. Mandatory Occurrence Reporting Plan
7. Partial Completion Strategy (If required)

The documents are unique to each project and scalable depending on the size and complexity of the proposal. Sweco Building Safety team provide a Principal Designer Building Regulations advisory service if you need assistance putting a Gateway 2 application together. It is advisable to be certain that your application is complete and shows compliance. The BSR fee is open and charged at £144/hour for their administration and the appointed multi disciplinary team that carries out the plan check.

If your building is under 18m then you can still choose who carries out your Statutory service. These applications are not subject to the Gateway process.

Also, the guidance Approved Document B, controlling the design of residential building, has undergone a significant amount of change in the past seven years and is continuing to do so.

The changes can be broken down by the height of the dwelling. Height is measured from the ground level to the uppermost floor of the building (not the roof). Roof top plant areas are not considered to be a floor.

Over 11m

1. Regulation 6 previously detailed requirements for external wall construction of buildings over 15m undergoing a change of use. They now apply to buildings over 11m.
2. “Non-combustible” (A2s1do or better) cladding and insulation are required (not the same as Regulation 7, other components can be combustible in some circumstances i.e. timber framed structures). Balconies should also be “non-combustible” (unless certain conditions are met). It should be noted that these requirements are different to those in Regulation 7.
3. Secure information boxes for firefighters are required.
4. There are requirements for sprinklers and wayfinding for the fire service (introduced in 2020).

Over 18m

1. Regulation 7 states that external wall construction (not just the façade) of residential buildings over 18m must be entirely “non-combustible”. It was amended in December 2022 to include hotels and extends the list of exemptions to include fibre optic cables and low level awnings.
2. Evacuation Alert Systems are now required according to BS 8629-2019, Approved Document B 2022 amendments.
3. Since July 2021, new planning applications are required for higher risk buildings to go through Gateway 1 (The Building Safety Regulator is a statutory consultee).
4. The guidance is changing to prohibit single stair residential buildings over 18m, however the reality is that this is already being enforced sometimes through planning policy but always by the BSR.
5. Additional guidance on the design of evacuation lifts and shafts is being provided but there is no threshold given in terms of provision, for the time being this is likely to be driven through planning policy and the BSR.

Generally

1. From September 2025 all new care homes will need to be fitted with sprinklers.
2. The September 2025 amendments to ADB include updated guidance on Regulation 38 (Fire Safety) Information. This makes clear that the Principal Contractor and Client (Responsible Person) are responsible for ensuing the information is provided and appropriate.
3. This guidance also includes a section on extending the field of application of tests for products and along with the 2029 amendments the British Standard testing methodology for the “fire” properties of products are being sequentially invalidated and manufacturers that are dependent on these tests will need to seek validation through the appropriate European Norm standard.
4. The amended version of BS 9991 is expected to be released the end of November 2024, Approved Document B guidance is unlikely to be seen appropriate for buildings over 30m in height by the BSR.

Our building compliance experts can support projects from the very start of the development process, ensuring fire safety solutions work hand-in-hand with architectural plans. Contact us below to discuss your challenges and requirements.