Which buildings are relevant buildings at Gateway One

A building is a Gateway One relevant building if it contains two or more dwellings or educational accommodation and it is 18 metres or more in height, or has seven or more storeys. Both limbs have to be satisfied. A 20 metre single house is not caught, and neither is a six-storey block of flats at 17 metres. Where the definition is met, the planning application must be accompanied by a fire statement and the Health and Safety Executive becomes a statutory consultee, and an application submitted without the statement should not be validated.

The definition in Article 9A

The requirement sits in Article 9A of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015, inserted with effect from 1 August 2021 by the 2021 amendment regulations. The drafting is short, and the two conditions are cumulative rather than alternative.

The occupation limb asks what the building contains: two or more dwellings, or educational accommodation. Student halls of residence and boarding accommodation at a school fall within the second category even though they are not dwellings. A building in a single residential occupation, however tall, falls outside. So does an office block, a hotel in Class C1, a hospital or a purely commercial tower, because none of them contains dwellings or educational accommodation.

The scale limb asks about height or storey count, and either one triggers it. Eighteen metres or more in height, or seven or more storeys. A building with seven storeys at a generous floor-to-floor height is caught by both; a building with six tall storeys reaching 18.2 metres is caught by the height limb alone.

Measuring the trigger

Height is not measured to the top of the parapet or the top of the lift overrun. The convention used across the building safety regime takes it from ground level to the floor surface of the top storey of the building, and discounts any storey that consists exclusively of plant or machinery rooms. That means a rooftop plant enclosure does not add a storey, and the finished floor level of the top occupied storey is the datum that matters.

Ground level on a sloping site is the question that generates the most argument on a borderline scheme. Where ground levels vary around the building, the measurement is taken from the lowest part of the surface of the ground adjacent to the building, so a site falling 1.5 metres across its frontage can push a scheme designed at 17.5 metres over the line.

Three practical steps keep a project out of trouble. Fix the datum with a measured topographical survey rather than a sketch. Put a dimensioned section on the drawings showing ground level to top occupied floor finish. And where the figure lands between 17.5 and 18.5 metres, assume the trigger applies and prepare the statement anyway, because the cost of doing so is far below the cost of a failed validation.

Development that engages the requirement

Three kinds of proposal bring Article 9A into play: development that provides one or more relevant buildings, development consisting of works to an existing relevant building, and development involving a change of use that creates a relevant building.

The third is the one most often missed. Converting a 20 metre office building into flats creates a building containing two or more dwellings at 18 metres or more, so the conversion application needs a fire statement even though nothing about the envelope is changing. The same applies to a hotel-to-residential conversion and to the addition of residential storeys on top of an existing commercial block.

Works to an existing relevant building is broader than it first appears. An application to replace windows, add balconies, re-clad an elevation or form a new entrance to an existing 10-storey residential block is development consisting of works to a relevant building. Whether a statement adds much in those cases is a fair question, and the answer from the regulator's side is that external wall construction and means of escape are affected by more alterations than designers expect.

Certain application types are outside the requirement. Check Article 9A itself and the accompanying government guidance against your application type before deciding, because the exclusions are specific and the list is not intuitive.

Buildings that fall outside

The most useful part of the definition is what it leaves out. A single dwellinghouse of any height. A building containing one dwelling above a commercial unit, because that is one dwelling. Purely commercial, industrial, retail and office buildings. Hotels. Hospitals and care homes, which are outside the Gateway One definition even though care homes and hospitals are brought within the higher-risk building definition for the design and construction gateways under the Building Safety Act 2022.

That last divergence catches experienced teams. Gateway One at planning stage, Gateway Two at building control approval and Gateway Three at completion use overlapping but different definitions, so a care home project with no fire statement obligation at planning stage can still be a higher-risk building for the later gateways. Treat the two questions separately and answer each from its own legislation.

Illustrative example: a mixed-use scheme with a 17.9 metre residential block over a podium, plus a separate four-storey block of six flats. The residential block is measured to the top occupied floor finish from the lowest adjacent ground level and comes out at 18.1 metres, so it is a relevant building and the application needs a fire statement covering it. The four-storey block is not. The figures are illustrative and the measurement convention is the point.

Checking the position before validation

Validation is where this bites. A local planning authority should not validate an application for development involving a relevant building unless the fire statement is provided on the published form, and the national validation requirement means the authority has no discretion to waive it.

Build the check into the pre-submission routine:

1. Confirm the building will contain two or more dwellings or educational accommodation on completion, not just today.
2. Take the height from the lowest adjacent ground level to the top occupied floor finish, from survey data.
3. Count storeys, discounting any storey used exclusively for plant.
4. Identify which limb of the trigger is engaged and record the figures on the drawing.
5. Instruct the Fire Statement early enough for the author to influence the design rather than describe it.
6. Flag to the client that the Health and Safety Executive will be consulted and that its response arrives inside the determination period.

The author matters. A fire statement is a fire-engineering document prepared by someone with the necessary competence, and the drafts a planning team can produce are a starting point for that person rather than a substitute. The same is true of a Fire Safety Strategy prepared to BS 9991 or BS 9999, which belongs to a fire engineer. Where the proposal involves retaining and altering an existing structure, the fire and structural work need to be coordinated from the outset, a point we cover in the note on the structural appraisal of a building proposed for retention.

If the trigger is missed

If the omission is spotted at validation, you lose weeks and resubmit. If it is spotted after validation, the authority will usually seek the statement and re-consult, which extends the determination period and often requires an agreed extension of time.

The worst case is a permission granted for development involving a relevant building where no statement was submitted and the statutory consultee was never consulted. A permission granted in breach of a statutory consultation requirement is open to challenge, and the risk sits with the developer rather than the council. Discovering it at the point of sale or funding is a poor moment.

Browse the report index to see which of the 66 report types a tall residential scheme usually needs alongside the fire statement.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. A Fire Statement must be prepared by a person with the necessary fire-engineering competence, and for specialist technical reports qualified professional input may be required.