Fire statement or fire safety strategy: which you need
The fire statement is a planning validation document consulted on with the Health and Safety Executive. The fire safety strategy is the engineering document behind Gateways Two and Three. Most residential blocks need both.
A fire statement and a fire safety strategy answer to different regimes, and a scheme of any size gets into trouble when the two are treated as one deliverable. The fire statement is a planning document, required by Article 9A of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 for applications involving a relevant high-rise residential building, submitted on the form published by the Secretary of State and consulted on with the Health and Safety Executive. The fire safety strategy is a fire-engineering document written to BS 9991 or BS 9999 for the Building Regulations process. If you are weighing up a fire statement or fire safety strategy on a residential block, the answer for most schemes is both, at different points in the programme.
What Planning Gateway One actually requires
Gateway One sits at the planning application stage. Since 1 August 2021, an application for planning permission for development involving a relevant building has to be accompanied by a fire statement, and the local planning authority has to consult the Health and Safety Executive before determining it.
The purpose is timing. Fire safety used to arrive at building control, long after the massing, the access routes and the core positions were fixed. Gateway One drags the conversation forward to the point where those things can still move.
That has a practical consequence for a developer. The fire statement is a validation document. If it is missing or filled in badly, the application does not get registered, and the eight or thirteen week clock never starts.
Which buildings are caught by the duty
A relevant building for Article 9A purposes contains two or more dwellings, or educational accommodation, and meets the height condition of 18 metres or more, or seven or more storeys. Either limb of the height test is enough.
Measurement is where schemes trip. Height is taken to the floor surface of the top storey rather than to the parapet or the roof ridge, and roof-top plant areas are treated differently from habitable storeys. The precise wording sits in Article 9A itself, and it repays reading before anyone concludes that a building at 17.8 metres is comfortably outside the duty.
| Fire statement | Fire safety strategy | |
|---|---|---|
| Regime | Planning, Article 9A DMPO 2015 | Building Regulations |
| Trigger | Relevant building at 18m or seven storeys | Any building, scaled to complexity |
| Form | Prescribed form published by the Secretary of State | No prescribed form, written to BS 9991 or BS 9999 |
| Consultee | Health and Safety Executive | Building Safety Regulator or building control body |
| Stage | With the planning application | Before Gateway Two, then developed for construction |
Mixed-use blocks are the common grey area. A podium of Class E units under residential floors still counts if the residential element brings the building within the definition, so the ground floor commercial fit-out does not take you outside it.
What the prescribed form covers, and what it does not
The fire statement form asks about the principles rather than the detail. Site layout and the space around the building. Emergency vehicle access and the routes a pump appliance would take. Water supplies for firefighting. The approach to means of escape and the evacuation strategy in outline. External wall construction and materials. How fire safety thinking has shaped the design that is actually being applied for.
It is deliberately short. Nobody expects smoke-control modelling or a full compartmentation schedule at this stage, and padding the form with engineering detail that later changes creates a problem rather than solving one.
What it does need is consistency with the drawings. If the form says appliances reach within 45 metres of every dwelling entrance and the site plan shows a turning head that a pump cannot use, the Health and Safety Executive will say so, and the case officer will have a consultation response on file that follows the application to committee. Our guide to Article 9A fire statements and when an application needs one goes through the form field by field.
Where the fire safety strategy takes over
The strategy is the engineering document. For residential buildings that usually means BS 9991, for non-residential BS 9999, and where the design departs from prescriptive guidance, a fire-engineered justification under BS 7974.
It covers compartmentation and fire resistance periods, the evacuation strategy and whether the building operates on stay put or simultaneous evacuation, protected lobbies and corridors, smoke control, sprinklers or other suppression, detection and alarm provision, firefighting shafts, and the rising main arrangement. The separation between dry and wet risers is a strategy question, not a planning one, although the shaft it needs has to be in the planning drawings.
Smoke control is the classic example of the two documents pulling on each other. A shaft or an openable vent arrangement has to exist in the architecture, so the approach to smoke control in common corridors needs a provisional answer before the planning drawings are frozen, even though the strategy that proves it comes later.
Gateways two and three under the Building Safety Act
For higher-risk buildings, the Building Safety Act 2022 puts two further control points after planning. Gateway Two is an application to the Building Safety Regulator for building control approval, made before construction starts, and the regulator has to be satisfied the design meets the functional requirements. Gateway Three is the completion certificate application at the end, and the building cannot be occupied until it is issued.
The strategy is the spine of both submissions. A scheme that reached planning with a thin fire statement and no underlying strategy tends to discover at Gateway Two that the core is a few square metres short, and by then the permission is granted and the drawings are the drawings. The threshold that makes a building higher-risk is worth checking early for exactly this reason.
Who is competent to prepare each
Both documents need fire-engineering competence. A fire statement is a planning form, but the answers on it are engineering judgements, and an authority that receives one signed by a planning agent with no fire input will usually get a critical consultation response.
Look for chartered engineer status with a fire specialism, membership of the Institution of Fire Engineers at an appropriate grade, and demonstrable experience of buildings of the same type and height. Ask for two comparable schemes and the name of the person who will actually do the work.
This is one of the report types where professional input is not optional. A Fire Statement and a fire safety strategy both require a suitably competent author under the Building Safety Act 2022 framework, and an AI-assisted draft is a starting point for that professional rather than a substitute for them.
Sequencing the two on a real programme
The order that works, and it is the order most delays come from ignoring:
- Establish at feasibility whether the building meets the 18 metre or seven storey condition, using measured floor-to-floor heights rather than a rough estimate.
- Appoint the fire engineer before the planning drawings are fixed, not after.
- Develop an outline fire strategy in parallel with the planning design, enough to settle core positions, staircase provision, appliance access and external wall build-up.
- Complete the prescribed fire statement form from that outline strategy, so the two agree.
- Submit, and treat the Health and Safety Executive response as design input rather than correspondence.
- Develop the full strategy for Gateway Two, reconciling it against the approved plans and flagging anything that needs a section 96A or section 73 amendment.
One honest uncertainty. Staircase provision for residential buildings above 18 metres has moved, with transitional arrangements attached, so check the current Approved Document B text and its transitional dates on gov.uk before you rely on a single-stair layout that worked on a scheme two years ago. This is general guidance, not legal advice, and the position should be confirmed with your local planning authority or a qualified fire engineer before you rely on it.
Browse the full set of PlanScope report types to see which fire and structural documents your scheme is likely to need, and send the draft to a fire engineer for review before it goes anywhere near the portal.
PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.
Frequently asked questions
Does every block of flats need a fire statement?
No. The duty in Article 9A of the Development Management Procedure Order 2015 applies to relevant buildings that contain two or more dwellings or educational accommodation and are 18 metres or more in height, or seven or more storeys. A three storey block of flats falls outside it. Check the measurement convention in the article itself before assuming a building is below the threshold.
Can the same consultant write both documents?
Usually yes, and it is often the sensible appointment. A fire engineer who prepares the outline strategy can complete the prescribed fire statement form from it, which keeps the two consistent. What does not work is a planning agent completing the form alone without fire engineering input behind the answers, because the Health and Safety Executive reads it as an engineering submission.
What happens if the fire statement is missing?
The application is invalid. A local planning authority cannot register an application for development involving a relevant building without the fire statement on the prescribed form, so the determination period never begins. Submitting a blank or obviously incomplete form has the same practical effect, because the authority will raise it as a validation query.
Is the Health and Safety Executive response binding on the council?
It is a statutory consultation response and a material consideration, not a veto. The local planning authority has to take it into account and give reasons if it departs from it. In practice an unresolved objection from the regulator on escape, access or firefighting water supply is very hard to overcome at the planning stage.
Does a fire statement replace the Building Regulations submission?
No. The two regimes run separately. Planning permission with an accepted fire statement says nothing about compliance with the functional requirements of the Building Regulations, which are tested at Gateway Two for higher-risk buildings and through building control for everything else. The strategy that supports those submissions is a different and much longer document.
Sources and further reading
This article is general guidance about the planning system in England and, where stated, the rest of the UK. It is not legal or professional advice. Check your local planning authority’s validation requirements and take professional advice for your specific site.