The Health and Safety Executive as a planning consultee

On applications involving relevant high-rise residential buildings, the Health and Safety Executive is a statutory consultee through the Building Safety Regulator, and its response is advice to the local planning authority rather than a decision. The authority must consult and must have regard to what comes back. It is not bound by it. Understanding that distinction, and the timetable the consultation runs on, is what separates a scheme that absorbs a difficult Gateway One response from one that loses a committee cycle to it.

This is the Regulator wearing its planning hat. The same body acts as building control for higher-risk buildings at Gateways Two and Three, and those are different processes with different powers. At Gateway One it is a consultee, nothing more and nothing less.

The Regulator's role in the planning system

The consultation is triggered by the same definition that triggers the fire statement requirement: a relevant building, broadly one containing two or more dwellings or educational accommodation that meets the height condition of 18 metres or more, or seven or more storeys.

The authority sends the application, the Fire Statement and the drawings. The Regulator reviews them and responds with comments on whether fire safety matters relevant to the planning decision have been properly considered. It does not approve the fire strategy, it does not certify anything, and a favourable response at this stage carries no weight at Gateway Two.

What it does produce is a document that sits on the public file and that objectors, members and the case officer will read. A response identifying gaps is difficult to leave unanswered, even though it is only advice.

The scope of its comments

The Regulator confines itself to matters a planning decision can actually influence. In practice that means:

1. Site layout and the relationship of the building to adjoining structures and boundaries.
2. Access for fire and rescue service appliances, including route widths, turning, carrying capacity and proximity to the building.
3. Water supplies for firefighting, including hydrant locations and the availability of adequate flow.
4. The broad means of escape arrangements and the number and disposition of stairs and cores.
5. The evacuation strategy proposed and whether the building form supports it.
6. External wall arrangements and features insofar as the planning drawings fix them.

Comments outside that scope, on matters properly for Building Regulations, are less common than developers expect. Where they appear, the authority is entitled to note that the point is for a later stage.

The one that most often causes redesign is appliance access, because it interacts with landscape design, tree retention, level changes and podium construction. A fire appliance route is a heavy vehicle route, and a landscape scheme that assumed a pedestrian surface will not carry it.

Response periods and what happens when they pass

The standard statutory consultee period under the Development Management Procedure Order applies, and the Regulator may ask for an extension where the application is complex or the submitted material is incomplete.

If the period passes without a response, the authority may proceed to determine. In practice most authorities wait, particularly where the application is going to committee, because determining without the response invites criticism. That is why an extension of time agreement between applicant and authority is usual on these schemes, and why building the consultation into the programme with realistic slack matters more than arguing about the statutory period.

A response arriving after the period but before determination is still a material consideration and will be taken into account. A response arriving after determination changes nothing about the permission, but it will surface again at Gateway Two.

Typical requests for further information

The commonest requests are for detail rather than for redesign, and most can be answered without amending the scheme.

Dimensioned appliance access drawings showing route widths, turning circles, the distance from the appliance position to the building entrance and to the dry riser inlet. Hydrant positions with confirmation from the water undertaker on available flow. A clearer statement of the evacuation strategy and how it is supported by the core arrangement. Clarification of the height measurement basis where the building sits near the threshold. Confirmation of who completed the fire statement and their competence.

That last one is worth taking seriously. This is a report type where fire engineering competence is expected, and a drafted document is a starting point for that professional rather than a substitute. PlanScope can produce an AI-assisted draft structured to the form, with missing facts flagged rather than invented, and a suitably qualified fire engineer then has to own the content. The professional directory is the route to arranging that review.

How the authority weighs the response

The case officer will summarise the response in the report and set out how it has been addressed. Three outcomes are usual.

No substantive comments, in which case the matter occupies a paragraph and moves on. Comments seeking further information, which are normally resolved by submitting the information and, where time allows, re-consulting. Or comments identifying a matter the Regulator considers unresolved, which is the one that causes difficulty.

In that third case, an authority can still grant permission. It has to explain why, and it may impose conditions requiring the matter to be resolved. Members are understandably cautious about granting permission against an adverse response from the fire safety regulator, so the practical effect is often a deferral rather than a refusal.

Illustrative example. A 22 metre block where the Regulator queries whether the appliance route can reach within the required distance of the single core, given a proposed podium deck. The applicant responds with a structural loading statement for the deck, a swept path analysis and a revised hard landscape specification. No elevation changes, three weeks, no deferral. The specifics are illustrative, but the shape of the fix, evidence rather than redesign, is typical.

Resolving a negative response before determination

Work in this order. Read the response literally and separate genuine design problems from requests for information, because the two need different responses and conflating them wastes time. Answer the information requests in a single consolidated submission rather than in pieces. For any genuine design issue, propose the minimum change that resolves it and show the resolution on drawings rather than describing it.

Then ask the case officer to re-consult, and check whether an extension of time is needed to allow it. Do not rely on an informal exchange with the Regulator outside the formal process, because what the committee report records is the formal response.

Where the difficulty is structural rather than detailed, for instance a single stair arrangement or a construction system that raises questions of its own, the answer may be to withdraw and resubmit rather than to fight to determination. Our note on mass timber frames at planning stage covers one version of that problem.

What to do if the response arrives late

If it arrives before determination, treat it as live. Ask the case officer to hold the determination if there is anything substantive to answer, because a permission granted without addressing a published adverse response is more vulnerable than one delayed by three weeks.

If it arrives after determination, the permission stands. Log the points and carry them into the Fire Safety Strategy and the Gateway Two submission, because the same Regulator will see them again, this time with powers rather than opinions. A Gateway One comment ignored at planning stage becomes a Gateway Two obstacle, and by then the design is far more expensive to change.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. For specialist technical reports, qualified professional input may be required. This is general guidance rather than legal advice: check the current consultation requirements with your local planning authority before relying on it.