Planning Gateway One and the Fire Statement requirement

Planning Gateway One is the point in the building safety regime where fire safety enters the planning system rather than waiting for Building Regulations. Since 1 August 2021, an application for planning permission involving a relevant building has had to be accompanied by a Fire Statement, and the Health and Safety Executive has been a statutory consultee on those applications.

The practical effect is that fire strategy decisions now have to be taken before the planning drawings are fixed. Site layout, escape routes, firefighting access and water supply are all planning-scale decisions, and Gateway One exists because too many of them were being settled after permission, when the only remaining options were bad ones.

Where Gateway One sits in the framework

The Building Safety Act 2022 created a three-gateway structure for higher-risk buildings. Gateway One sits in the planning system and is delivered through article 9A of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015. Gateway Two is the building control approval stage before construction, and Gateway Three the completion stage before occupation, both handled by the Building Safety Regulator within the Health and Safety Executive.

Gateway One is the only one of the three that a planning officer touches. It does not approve a fire strategy, and it does not replace anything that happens later. What it does is put a fire-safety-informed layout in front of the decision-maker while the layout can still change.

Which buildings are relevant buildings

The requirement bites on a relevant building, defined by two elements together.

The use element: a building containing two or more dwellings, or educational accommodation.

The height element: a building 18 metres or more in height, or with seven or more storeys.

Both have to be satisfied. A single large house of eight storeys is not a relevant building. A 12-storey office is not a relevant building. A 19 metre block of flats is.

Two points on measurement. Storey counting and height measurement follow defined rules, and a mezzanine, a basement or a plant enclosure can change the answer at the margin. And the requirement applies where the development involves the provision of one or more relevant buildings, which catches a change of use or a conversion that creates a relevant building as well as new construction.

Note that the definition used for Gateway One and the definition of a higher-risk building for the later gateways are not identical. Educational accommodation appears in one and not in the other. Check both if your scheme is near a threshold.

What article 9A requires

Article 9A requires the application to be accompanied by a Fire Statement, prepared on the form published for the purpose. An application without one is not valid, and validation teams check it early.

The form is structured around the matters the Health and Safety Executive will comment on:

• the principles, concepts and standards applied to the fire safety design
• site layout, including the position of the building and the space around it
• emergency vehicle access and the water supplies available for firefighting
• access and equipment for firefighting, including firefighting shafts and lifts
• means of escape for all occupants, including provision for anyone who cannot use stairs unaided
• how the proposals affect land and buildings around the site

Answer them at the level the design has actually reached. A statement that describes intentions in general terms invites a holding response, and a statement that promises a strategy to be developed later has missed the purpose of the gateway.

The Fire Statement is a distinct document from a full Fire Safety Strategy prepared to BS 9991 or BS 9999. The strategy is a fire engineering document that develops through the design; the statement is the planning-stage account of the decisions with spatial consequences.

The Health and Safety Executive as consultee

The HSE receives the application and responds to the local planning authority. In practice its responses fall into three groups: no comment, comments that the authority is expected to address through conditions or design change, and a request for further information where the statement does not allow a view to be formed.

Build the response period into the programme. The consultation runs alongside the statutory determination period rather than extending it, and a request for further information late in that period is one of the common reasons an authority asks for an extension of time.

Where the HSE raises a substantive point, resolve it by amending the scheme rather than by correspondence. The points that arise are usually spatial: a fire appliance cannot reach a facade, a hydrant is too far, a single stair arrangement needs justification, or the space around the building is insufficient for the equipment assumed.

Competence of the author

This is one of the report types where a professional with the necessary fire engineering competence is legally required, and the form asks who prepared the statement and on what basis. A draft produced by anyone else is a starting point for that professional, not a substitute for their work.

PlanScope can draft a Fire Statement from your project information and flag the facts it cannot verify, and the document then has to be completed, checked and signed off by a competent fire engineer before it goes anywhere near a validation team. Reviewers can be found through the professional directory. No AI-assisted draft removes the need for professional judgement here, and none should be presented as though it does.

How Gateway One relates to the later gateways

Gateway Two requires building control approval from the Building Safety Regulator before construction of a higher-risk building begins, with the design and the fire and structural strategy assessed in detail. Gateway Three requires a completion certificate before the building can be occupied and registered.

The connection back to planning is where programmes go wrong. A design change required at Gateway Two, such as a second stair, a wider corridor or a revised core, can be a material departure from the planning permission and need a section 73 application or a fresh permission. That is months, not weeks.

So the discipline is to keep the planning drawings and the developing fire strategy in step, and to avoid submitting a planning application on a layout the fire engineer has not seen. A scheme that changes its core arrangement between Gateway One and Gateway Two has effectively run the process twice.

Illustrative example: a 21 metre residential block on a tight urban site, submitted with a Fire Statement describing a single stair core and an appliance parking position on the adopted street. The HSE response queried the reach to the rear facade and the assumed hydrant location. The revised layout moved the block 1.8 metres forward, formed a hardstanding capable of taking an appliance on the eastern side, and confirmed a new hydrant position with the water undertaker. Those are planning changes, and they were far easier at week six than they would have been after permission.

Follow reform news on the planning law timeline, and browse all 66 report types to see what a taller residential scheme typically needs.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; the building safety regime continues to develop, so check the current position with the Health and Safety Executive, your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. A Fire Statement 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. For specialist technical reports, qualified professional input may be required.