Evacuation lifts: what a planning application should show

An evacuation lift is a lift designed and protected so it can be used to evacuate people during a fire, rather than being taken out of service the moment the alarm sounds. It needs a protected lobby, a secondary power supply, its own controls and a shaft protected to the same standard as the escape stair. All of that takes floor area, on every storey, and that is why a planning application has to show it.

Architects meeting the requirement for the first time usually find the lobby, not the shaft, is what breaks the plan.

Why evacuation lifts affect planning drawings

Three planning-relevant things follow from providing one.

The core grows. A lift serving as an evacuation lift needs a fire-protected lobby at each level, sized to hold a wheelchair user and a helper clear of the door swing and clear of the escape route. That lobby is additional to the general circulation.

The floorplate loses lettable area on every storey, which changes unit count, mix and viability.

And the secondary power supply needs a home: a generator or a protected supply route with its own plant space, usually at ground or basement level, with ventilation and access.

None of these can be added later without redesign, which is why the fire strategy has to be a design input rather than a compliance check at the end.

Approved Document B was amended following the 2023 consultation on sprinklers and stairs to expect an evacuation lift in new blocks of flats above 18 metres, alongside the second staircase expectation, with transitional arrangements for schemes already in the pipeline. Check the current Approved Document B and its transitional wording on gov.uk before assuming your scheme is or is not caught, because both have been amended since first publication.

Core size and lobby space consequences

The dimensions come from the fire strategy and from Part M, and they interact.

The lobby has to accommodate a wheelchair user waiting, without obstructing the escape route or the stair door, and with a means of communication to a management point. On a compact residential core that pushes the lobby to a size which forces the stair and lift into a different relationship than a standard single-core plan allows.

Where the building also needs a second staircase, the two requirements land together and the core stops being a core and becomes a spine. That is a different building form, and it usually means moving from a point block to a linear plan.

The practical test at concept stage is simple. Draw the core at the size the fire strategy needs, then draw the flats around it. Designers who draw the flats first and fit the core in afterwards end up with a plan that fails on lobby size and a set of units that cannot be adjusted without losing one.

Interaction with accessible dwelling policy

Evacuation provision and accessible housing policy are separate requirements that point at the same residents.

M4(2) accessible and adaptable dwellings and M4(3) wheelchair user dwellings are optional requirements under Part M, applied where a planning condition imposes them following a development plan policy. Where a scheme provides wheelchair user dwellings on upper floors, the evacuation question becomes concrete rather than theoretical.

The design consequence is about location as well as provision. Placing every M4(3) dwelling on the ground floor avoids the problem and produces a poor scheme, and most authorities resist it. Distributing them through the building is better planning and makes the evacuation lift essential rather than optional.

Set this out explicitly in the Design and Access Statement, because the access section is where a case officer looks for it, and an application that connects accessible unit distribution to evacuation provision reads as considered rather than assembled.

What the fire statement should say about it

For a relevant building, Article 9A of the Development Management Procedure Order 2015 requires a fire statement with the application, and the Health and Safety Executive is consulted at Planning Gateway One. Fire statements legally require an author with the necessary fire engineering competence, and a PlanScope draft is a starting point for that professional rather than a substitute.

On evacuation lifts the statement should be specific about six things.

1. The evacuation strategy for the building, and whether it is stay put, simultaneous or phased.
2. Whether an evacuation lift is provided, how many, and which cores they serve.
3. The lobby arrangement at each level, with the dimensions and the relationship to the stair.
4. The secondary power supply arrangement and where the plant sits.
5. How residents who cannot use stairs are identified and assisted, and how that connects to the management arrangements.
6. How the provision has shaped the layout, which is the question Article 9A actually asks.

Point six is the one applicants miss. The fire statement is a planning document about how fire safety considerations have influenced the design. A statement that describes the systems without explaining what the design gave up to accommodate them has answered a different question.

Where policy already requires provision

Building Regulations are not the only driver. The London Plan requires fire evacuation lift provision in residential development through its fire safety policy, and boroughs apply it directly, so London schemes have been designing for this for longer than the rest of England.

Elsewhere, local plan policy on fire safety and on accessible housing may combine to the same effect even without an explicit requirement, particularly where the plan is recent.

Personal emergency evacuation planning for residents has been the subject of government consultation and policy development following the Grenfell Tower Inquiry recommendations, and the position has moved more than once. Check the current gov.uk position rather than relying on a summary, and say in the application which framework the design has assumed.

Retrofitting into a consented core

An illustrative example. A consented scheme of 19 storeys has a single stair and a single passenger lift in a compact central core. The design team is asked to add an evacuation lift and a second stair. The core grows by roughly a third, the lobby arrangement forces the stair away from the lift, and two units per floor become one larger unit plus circulation. Total unit count falls by around 30 across the building, and the affordable housing obligation and viability appraisal both have to be revisited.

The consenting route depends on the wording of the permission. Section 96A non-material amendment is not available for a change of that scale. Section 73 can vary the approved drawings condition, but the Court of Appeal decision in Finney confirmed it cannot be used to change the description of development, so a permission that recites a specific building configuration will need a fresh application. Section 73B, introduced by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, provides another route, and the detail of how authorities apply it has moved, so check before choosing.

Whichever route is used, the fire statement has to be redone, the Health and Safety Executive is re-consulted, and the Fire Safety Strategy has to describe the building as it will now be built.

Conditions and later amendments

Expect conditions requiring the development to be carried out in accordance with the approved fire statement, and requiring details of the evacuation lift installation to be approved before the relevant part of the works.

Two points to raise before the decision is issued. Ask for the condition to reference the approved drawings where the provision is already shown, which turns discharge into a formality. And on a phased scheme, ask for phased triggers.

After occupation the arrangement becomes a management matter, and the building's evacuation strategy has to be maintained under the fire safety regime rather than through planning. Getting the spatial provision right at application stage is what makes that possible.

PlanScope drafts a Fire Statement structured to UK planning policy, with a "to be confirmed" flag wherever design information is missing. This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.