Refusal on fire safety information at Gateway One

A refusal on fire safety information at Gateway One is almost always a refusal for things absent from the drawings rather than for anything wrong with the building. The Health and Safety Executive is a statutory consultee on applications for relevant buildings, and its objections follow a narrow and predictable list: appliance access that is not shown, water supplies that have not been evidenced, an escape strategy stated in principle but not demonstrated on the plan. Those are drafting failures, and they are expensive ones, because a scheme held for a fire statement rewrite loses a determination period.

The regime comes from Article 9A of the Development Management Procedure Order 2015, which requires a fire statement with applications for development involving a relevant building, on the form published for the purpose.

When the fire statement requirement applies

The trigger is the building, not the scheme value or the application type. An application involving a relevant building needs the statement, and an application without one where it is required is invalid, so this is a validation matter before it is a merits matter.

Three practical checks before submission.

Whether the building meets the definition of a relevant building, dealt with below. Whether the application is one that involves such a building, which includes applications for its erection and for certain works to it. And whether the statement is on the published form, because a bespoke fire report is not a substitute for the form even where it contains better information.

The form itself is structured around the matters the regulator is consulted on. Completing it as a narrative essay rather than answering each field is the second commonest reason the submission is sent back.

Relevant buildings and the height and storey triggers

A relevant building for this purpose is one that contains two or more dwellings, or educational accommodation, and that meets the height or storey threshold: 18 metres or more in height, or seven or more storeys.

Two measurement points deserve care, because they decide whether the regime applies at all.

Height is measured as the regulations specify, and the measurement convention matters on a sloping site and where the roof build-up is thick. A scheme designed at 17.8 metres that gains a parapet upstand, a thicker roof zone or a raised plant plinth during technical design has crossed into the regime, which means a statement is needed, the regulator becomes a consultee, and the building control route changes.

Storey counting follows the regulations too, and the treatment of basements, mezzanines and roof-level plant levels is where errors appear.

Fix the measurement early, record the basis on which it was taken, and annotate it on the drawings. On a scheme within half a metre of the threshold, that annotation is the first thing a validation officer looks for.

The regulator as a statutory consultee

The consultation at the planning stage is deliberately limited in scope. The regulator comments on the matters relevant to the planning decision: the site layout, access for fire service vehicles, water supplies for firefighting, and the principles of the approach to fire safety for the building.

What it does not do is approve the fire strategy. The detailed design is assessed later, at the building control approval stage, by the Building Safety Regulator, and the response at the planning stage does not bind that later assessment. An applicant who treats a favourable Gateway One response as a cleared fire strategy will find that out at the next stage.

The consequence for the planning submission is that the statement should answer the layout and access questions in full, with evidence, and should set out the fire safety principles without pretending to a level of detail that has not yet been designed. Overstating the design maturity invites questions the team cannot yet answer.

Common gaps that produce an objection

The recurring omissions, in the order they appear in responses:

• no plan showing the fire appliance access route, its width, its surfacing and the hardstanding position relative to the building entrance
• no demonstration that the appliance can reach the required proximity to the firefighting shaft entrance or to the building access point
• turning provision assumed rather than drawn, with no swept path for the appliance
• water supplies addressed by a sentence rather than by evidence, with no hydrant position, no flow information and no record of enquiry to the water undertaker
• an escape strategy described in principle with no indication of stair numbers, lobby arrangements or travel distances on the plan
• evacuation of people who cannot use stairs not addressed at all
• the external wall construction approach left unstated where the building height engages the restrictions on materials
• plant and smoke control space shown as a dashed outline rather than a designed element

Each of those is answerable with a drawing or a letter, which is what makes this category of refusal frustrating. The information usually exists somewhere in the team.

Site access and water supply evidence

These two are the most frequently under-evidenced, and both are evidence rather than argument.

For access, the submission should include a plan showing the appliance route from the public highway, dimensioned for width and headroom, with gradients where relevant, the construction and load capacity of the route and the hardstanding, gate and barrier positions with the means of opening, and swept path analysis for the appliance type the fire and rescue service specifies. Where the route crosses a podium, a basement slab or a landscaped area, the structural capacity needs stating rather than implying.

For water supplies, the evidence is a hydrant layout with distances to the building access points, confirmation of the available flow and pressure, and a record of the enquiry to the water undertaker with its response. Where the existing supply is inadequate, say what the proposed solution is: a new hydrant, a mains reinforcement, or a static supply such as a tank, each of which has space and cost consequences that belong on the planning drawings.

Both sets of evidence take weeks to obtain. Starting them when the consultee objection arrives guarantees a delay.

Design changes that resolve the objection

Where an objection is substantive rather than evidential, the design responses that work tend to be these.

Relocating or widening the appliance route, which usually costs landscape area or parking spaces rather than floorspace. Adding or repositioning hardstanding, which is comparatively easy if identified early and awkward once the drainage and landscape designs are fixed. Repositioning the core so that the firefighting access point and the appliance position relate properly. Adding a hydrant or upgrading the supply. And, where the escape strategy is the problem, changing the stair arrangement, which is the expensive one.

On the stair question, the national position on second staircases in taller residential buildings has moved in recent years and continues to be worked through in the Approved Documents and in guidance, with transitional arrangements that matter for schemes already in the system. Check the current position and the applicable transitional provisions before fixing a single-stair layout, because a redesign at this stage affects the core, the floorplate and the unit count.

A Fire Statement is a document where fire-engineering competence is legally required, so an AI-assisted draft is a starting point for that professional rather than a substitute for their judgement. The same is true of a Fire Safety Strategy prepared to BS 9991 or BS 9999, which sits downstream of the planning submission and is a fire-engineering document in its own right.

Appeal prospects on this ground

Be realistic, because this is one of the weaker grounds of appeal.

Where the refusal reason is that the required information was not provided, an appeal is a poor route. The inspector is being asked to decide an application on evidence the authority never saw, and although new evidence can be submitted on appeal, an inspector faced with a wholly new access and water supply case will often conclude the authority should have the chance to consider it. The faster route is a resubmission with the evidence, using the fee exemption where the conditions in the fee regulations are met.

Where the refusal reason goes beyond the planning-stage matters, the position is different. If the objection and the refusal rest on detailed design questions that properly belong to the building control approval stage, that is an arguable appeal, and the argument is about the scope of the planning consultation rather than about fire engineering.

Two points to put in either case. The statement of case should distinguish clearly between the layout and access matters, which are planning matters, and the strategy detail, which is not. And it should set out what has changed since the refusal, with the drawings and the correspondence attached, so the inspector can see the gap has been closed.

The Planning Statement on a resubmission should state the previous reference, the reason for refusal, and a point-by-point response. Related evidence-gap refusals are covered in highway safety refusals and visibility splay evidence and committee refusals against officer advice and appeal prospects.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority, the Building Safety Regulator or a qualified professional before relying on it. For specialist technical reports, qualified professional input may be required. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.