Fire service access and water supply in a fire statement

Fire service access and water supply are the two parts of a Planning Gateway One fire statement that change the drawings. Most of the statement describes design intent that will be worked up later. These two sections set hard dimensions: a road wide enough and strong enough for an appliance, a hardstanding close enough to the dry riser inlet, and hydrants within reach of the entry points. Architects who leave them to the fire engineer after planning submission usually end up moving a building.

Gateway One applies to relevant buildings, broadly those of 18 metres or more in height or seven or more storeys containing two or more dwellings or educational accommodation, through Article 9A of the Development Management Procedure Order 2015.

Why access and water supply appear at planning stage

The point of Gateway One is to put fire safety into the planning decision rather than discovering it at building control. The statement is submitted on the form published by the Secretary of State, and the Building Safety Regulator within the Health and Safety Executive is a statutory consultee on the application.

Access and water supply are in scope because they are planning matters in substance. An appliance route is a road, a hardstanding is a surfaced area, and a hydrant is a piece of infrastructure in the public highway or on the site. All three compete with landscape, parking, servicing, drainage and the position of the building, and none of them can be resolved by a later technical submission if the layout has already been fixed.

A Fire Statement is a report type where a professional with the necessary fire engineering competence is required rather than merely advisable. The drafting can be structured in advance, and the content has to come from that professional.

Appliance access routes and hardstanding

Approved Document B sets out access and facilities for the fire service, and the numbers that drive layout are the vehicle dimensions and the loading.

The figures most often quoted from the Approved Document for a pumping appliance are a minimum road width between kerbs of 3.7 metres, a minimum gateway width of 3.1 metres, a minimum clearance height of 3.7 metres, and a minimum carrying capacity of 12.5 tonnes. A high reach appliance needs a greater clearance height, a much larger turning circle and a higher carrying capacity. Take the current figures from the current edition of the Approved Document, because they are the ones the regulator and building control will apply.

The carrying capacity requirement is the one that catches schemes out. A courtyard over a basement car park, a podium deck or a landscaped area over a vaulted service route has to be designed for appliance loading if an appliance has to stand there. That is a structural decision with a cost, and it has to be made at the same time as the layout rather than afterwards.

Turning provision is the second trap. A turning head designed for the local authority refuse vehicle will not necessarily take a high reach appliance, and the two vehicles have different turning circles. Draw both.

Distances to entry points and dry riser inlets

Two distance rules do most of the work, and which one applies depends on whether the building has fire mains.

Where the building is fitted with fire mains, the appliance standing position has to be close to each inlet connection, with the Approved Document setting a maximum distance measured from the appliance to the inlet, and the inlet should be visible from the standing position. Where the building has no fire mains, access is required to within a stated distance of all points inside each dwelling, measured along a route the firefighters would take.

Buildings with a floor more than 18 metres above fire service access level need rising mains, which become wet rather than dry above a greater height. Firefighting shafts are required where the top storey exceeds the stated height above access level, or where a basement is deeper than the stated depth, and a shaft takes floor area from every storey it passes through.

That last point is the one to resolve before the planning layout is fixed. A firefighting shaft containing a firefighting lift, a protected stair and a lobby is a substantial core element, and discovering at Gateway Two that one is needed in a position the planning drawings do not allow for is an expensive conversation.

So locate the inlets early, mark the appliance standing position on the site plan, and dimension the distance between them on the drawing rather than asserting compliance in text.

Hydrant provision and who confirms it

Water supply for firefighting is a separate question from the building's internal systems.

The Approved Document addresses hydrant provision for buildings above a stated floor area, with hydrants required within a given distance of an entry point to the building and spaced no further than a stated distance apart. Where the mains supply cannot deliver the required flow, the alternative is a dedicated static supply, and the Approved Document gives a minimum capacity for a charged static water tank.

Three parties are involved and each has a different role.

The water undertaker holds the information about main sizes, pressures and available flow, and installs hydrants. The fire and rescue authority requires hydrants under its own statutory powers and will say what it needs. The developer pays for the installation and for any reinforcement of the main.

Ask the water company for a flow and pressure test or a hydraulic assessment early, because the answer sometimes requires a main to be upsized along a length of road, which is a programme and cost item with its own highway consents. A Utilities Assessment is the place to record the supply position alongside the other services, and where a new main is needed the adoption and maintenance questions arise in the same way as they do for maintenance and adoption in a drainage strategy.

Where the site has no adequate mains and a static supply is proposed, that tank has to go somewhere accessible to an appliance, and it is not a small object.

What the access requirement does to the site layout

Five consequences recur across schemes, and recognising them early saves redesign.

1. The appliance route usually has to run along a facade rather than stopping at an entrance, which conflicts with planting, SuDS features and cycle stores.
2. Tree planting cannot overhang the route below the clearance height, which pushes street trees away from the building and changes the landscape proposals.
3. Gated or bollarded access needs a fire service opening arrangement, which affects the public character of a courtyard that was designed to feel enclosed.
4. The standing position needs a surface finish that takes appliance loading, so a decorative paved courtyard becomes a structural element.
5. Where a single access serves a long block, the distances to each inlet may require a second access point, which can mean losing a plot or a car parking area.

Draw the appliance route and the standing positions on the planning layout, with dimensions. An application that shows them is easier to support than one that promises them, and a committee report can reproduce a dimensioned plan.

Evidence to include and who prepares it

The submission should contain the fire statement on the published form, a fire service access plan, and enough supporting detail for the regulator to see the strategy.

What makes the package work:

• A site plan showing appliance routes, standing positions, gateway widths, turning provision and the distances to inlets and entry points
• A statement of the appliance types assumed, with the dimensions and loadings used
• The structural loading position over any podium, basement or vault on the route
• The water supply position, with the mains capacity, hydrant locations and any static supply
• The rising main and firefighting shaft arrangement, where applicable
• A statement of the author's fire engineering competence

The competence statement is not a formality. Gateway One is built on the premise that the fire strategy has been prepared by someone qualified to prepare it, and a statement completed by a design team member without fire engineering competence is the single most common reason the regulator asks for more. A Fire Safety Strategy under BS 9991 or BS 9999 is a fire engineering document in its own right, and the two documents should be consistent with each other.

Where a draft has been produced in-house, the professional directory is the route for a fire engineer to review and sign it before submission.

Where the regulator raises an objection

Responses from the Building Safety Regulator tend to focus on gaps rather than on disagreement with a strategy.

The recurring points are an absent or inadequate access plan, distances asserted but not dimensioned, no information on structural capacity where an appliance has to stand over a structure, no water supply information, and a statement that does not demonstrate who prepared it and on what basis.

Each of those is fixable before submission at a fraction of the cost of fixing it afterwards. Fire service access is a layout constraint, so treat it as one from the first sketch and commission the fire engineer at the same time as the structural engineer.

Browse the PlanScope report types to see which fire and structural documents a relevant building needs at planning stage.

For specialist technical reports, qualified professional input may be required. A fire statement at Planning Gateway One must be prepared by someone with the necessary fire engineering competence. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.