Regulations and Guidance
Latest
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New fire safety rules are coming into force to support disabled and vulnerable residents in high-rise buildings. From 6th April 2026, the Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025 will require Responsible Persons to identify residents who may need help evacuating in a fire and to take steps to support them. These residents, referred to as relevant residents, may have mobility, sensory, or cognitive impairments.
The Regulations introduce Residential Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (Residential PEEPs), which include:
- Identifying relevant residents
- A person-centred fire risk assessment
- An agreed emergency evacuation statement
- Optional consent-based sharing of information with the local Fire and Rescue Authority
- Ongoing review of plans and evacuation procedures
These duties are legally enforceable and apply to residential buildings over 18 metres or seven storeys, or 11 metres and above with a simultaneous evacuation strategy.
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On 30 January 2025, Andrew Saunders from the Building Safety Regulator hosted an exclusive webinar for members of The Property Institute, and their APs/PAPs, covering the latest insights and guidance on the BAC Application process for HRBs.
The webinar covered:
- Understanding the BAC assessment process
- Learning what criteria the assessors will focus on for each element of the application
- Preparing your BAC application to the standard required
- How the application will be assessed, and who by
- What criteria will be assessed in the Safety Case Report, Residents Engagement Strategy and mandatory occurrence reporting system information
TPI members can access the webinar recording here
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In December 2024, the BSR updated its Making Buildings Safer webpage, featuring essential information on Building Assessment Certificate applications.
The updates include a new video presentation by Tim Galloway, delivered at The Property Institute’s Annual Conference in October, highlighting some of the common pitfalls in certificate applications. You can watch the video here.
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The BSR has now published important updates to Building Assessment Certification guidance - with a key addition. They have now integrated the specific assessment criteria used by HSE's multi-disciplinary teams when assessing BAC applications.
For your convenience, the BSR has created a streamlined summary of these changes, focusing on the Building Safety Regulator's core requirements for successful building assessment certificates - see here - please use this summary in conjunction with the full updated guidance.
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The contradiction between current legislation and guidance on what constitutes a higher-risk building was highlighted by the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) decision in Smoke House & Curing House, 18 Remus Road, London E3 2NF (LON/00BG/HYI/2023/0024). In Smoke House, the FTT applied the HRB Regulations 2023, finding that a roof garden was a storey, despite it being an open rooftop which was not fully enclosed. The FTT noted that the guidance appeared to go beyond the wording of the legislation and was not a reliable interpretation of the law.
In response, the government has added a note to the guidance stating that it and the Building Safety Regulator are considering the view of the FTT in Smoke House but "until stated otherwise, the sector and regulatory bodies should continue to refer to existing government guidance". This uncertainty leaves practitioners in a difficult position when advising on buildings where the inclusion of a roof garden may be the deciding factor in whether the building is an HRB.
The definitions of HRB's in the BSA 2022 are supplemented by the Higher-Risk Buildings (Descriptions and Supplementary Provisions) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/275) (HRB Regulations 2023), which provide that a storey does not count towards the seven storeys if the storey is a rooftop plant or machinery area or consists exclusively of roof-top machinery or plant room (regulation 6, HRB Regulations 2023).
The government's guidance on what constitutes a higher-risk building is set out in three separate documents, housed on a collection page (see Guidance on the criteria for being a higher-risk building). The guidance states (emphasis added):
"A storey must be fully enclosed to be considered a storey. The roof of a building should not be counted as a storey. Open rooftops such as rooftop gardens are not considered storeys and should not be counted as such when determining the number of storeys or measuring the height."