Fire Statement thresholds for residential schemes

A Fire Statement is required with a planning application where the development involves a relevant building, meaning a building containing two or more dwellings, or educational accommodation, that is 18 metres or more in height or has seven or more storeys. The requirement sits in Article 9A of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015, and it is the planning half of what is generally called Planning Gateway One. Cross the fire statement threshold residential trigger and the statement becomes a validation requirement, so the application cannot be registered without it.

That distinction matters commercially. A missing transport note delays a decision. A missing Fire Statement means you have not applied at all.

Which buildings are relevant buildings

Two limbs have to be satisfied together: the use and the height.

The use limb covers buildings containing two or more dwellings, and buildings containing educational accommodation. A single large house is outside it however tall. An office building is outside it, though a conversion creating flats within one is not.

The height limb is 18 metres or more, or seven or more storeys. Either is enough. A building of seven storeys at 17.5 metres is caught by the storey count even though the height threshold is not reached.

Mixed use buildings are caught where the residential element brings them within the definition, so a scheme with commercial floors below flats needs to be assessed on the whole building rather than on the residential part alone.

The height and storey triggers

Height is measured from ground level to the floor surface of the top storey, ignoring any storey that consists exclusively of plant or machinery. That is not the same as the overall height to the parapet or the ridge, and the difference frequently decides borderline cases.

Two traps recur.

Ground level on a sloping site is not a single figure, and the measurement convention has to be applied consistently rather than taken from the lowest point because that produces a convenient answer. Set it out on a section drawing.

And the storey count has its own definition, with storeys below ground treated differently from those above. Where a scheme sits close to either trigger, put the calculation on a drawing with dimensions and state the convention used, so the validation officer can check it rather than query it.

Designing to 17.9 metres to avoid the threshold is a legitimate design choice, but it should be a deliberate one taken early, because the consequences of crossing the line run well beyond the planning application.

What the statement must address

The Fire Statement is submitted on the form published by the Secretary of State, and its scope is set by that form rather than left to the author. It covers the principles, concepts and approach relating to fire safety, and then works through the physical matters.

• The site layout, including the position of the building and its relationship to neighbouring structures.
• Emergency vehicle access and the location and provision of water supplies for firefighting.
• Access for the fire and rescue service into and around the building.
• The approach to means of escape, including the strategy for evacuation.
• The construction method and the products and materials proposed for the external walls.
• Arrangements for ongoing management and maintenance of fire safety measures.

Several of those are planning matters as much as fire engineering ones. Fire appliance access affects the layout and the road geometry, hydrant positions affect the services strategy, and the evacuation approach affects core design and unit mix. That is precisely why the requirement sits at planning stage rather than at building control.

The consequence is that the fire strategy has to inform the Design and Access Statement rather than being written after it. A scheme whose access road cannot take a fire appliance is a scheme with a layout problem, not a paperwork problem.

Who is competent to prepare it

The statement should be prepared by a person with the necessary fire engineering competence, and the form asks for details of the author and their qualifications. A Fire Statement is one of the report types where a suitably qualified professional is legally required rather than merely advisable, under the framework created by the Building Safety Act 2022 and Article 9A of the Development Management Procedure Order 2015.

In practice that means a chartered fire engineer or a suitably experienced member of a recognised fire engineering body, and the Building Safety Regulator will look at the author as well as the content. An AI-assisted draft can carry structure, the policy context and the site description, but the fire engineering judgements and the sign-off belong to the competent professional.

The same applies more strongly to a full Fire Safety Strategy prepared to the relevant British Standards, which is a fire engineering document from beginning to end.

The Building Safety Regulator as consultee

The Health and Safety Executive, acting as the Building Safety Regulator, is a statutory consultee on applications involving relevant buildings. That is the substance of Planning Gateway One.

Its response is not a rubber stamp. Comments commonly address fire appliance access, water supply for firefighting, the external wall construction and the evacuation strategy, and they can require design changes rather than conditions. Because the Regulator is consulted at planning stage, changes it seeks arrive early enough to alter the scheme, which is the point of the gateway.

Engage before you apply where the scheme is unusual. A pre-application conversation about a single stair, a constrained access or an atrium is far less costly than a consultation response that lands after the design is fixed.

Effect on validation and determination

Article 9A makes the statement a national validation requirement. Without it, the council should not register the application, and applicants regularly lose two or three weeks discovering this.

Three practical points follow.

Submit the statement on the published form. A bespoke fire report attached instead of the form is a common reason for rejection at validation, even where its content is better.

Check whether the council has any local requirement on top of the national one, which some validation checklists do for tall buildings.

And build the consultee response into the programme. The determination period runs as normal, but a Regulator response requiring change usually means an extension of time agreement rather than a refusal, provided you engage with it.

Design consequences of crossing the threshold

Passing 18 metres or seven storeys changes the building, not just the paperwork.

The building becomes a higher-risk building for the purposes of the Building Safety Act 2022 regime, which brings Gateway Two approval from the Building Safety Regulator before construction starts and Gateway Three before occupation. Both are hard stops with their own assessment periods, and they sit outside the planning programme entirely.

Fire safety requirements change too. Government has confirmed a second staircase requirement for new residential buildings above 18 metres, with the detail set out in the fire safety Approved Document and transitional arrangements for schemes already in train. Check the current version, because a second stair changes core efficiency, unit numbers and viability on a constrained plot.

Sprinkler provision, evacuation lift strategy, firefighting shaft design and external wall material restrictions all follow from the same threshold. So does the cost of insurance and warranty cover.

Illustrative example: a scheme of 34 flats over seven storeys on a corner site, 17.6 metres to the top floor surface. It is a relevant building on the storey count alone. The Fire Statement is a validation requirement, the Building Safety Regulator is consulted, and the higher-risk building regime applies to construction. Reducing to six storeys removes all of that, at the cost of five flats, and that trade needs to be tested at feasibility rather than at planning.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Fire safety requirements are technical and change, so take advice from a suitably qualified fire engineer and confirm the position with your local planning authority and the Building Safety Regulator before relying on it.

Scope the fire, design and access evidence together at the outset. Browse the report types by category to see what a tall residential scheme needs.

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