Gateway One Fire Statement

With one of the most experienced Fire Safety teams in the UK, we provide Gateway One Fire Statements to support planning applications.

All proposed developments in England that include high-rise residential buildings require a Gateway One Fire Statement.

This requirement became mandatory in August 2021 following an amendment to the Town and Country Planning Act.

All applications for full planning permission must include a Planning Gateway One Fire Statement that involve :

+ provision of one or more relevant buildings, or

+ development of an existing relevant building or

+ development within the curtilage of a relevant building

Relevant buildings are those which contain two or more dwellings or educational accommodation and meet the height condition (18m or more in height, or 7 storeys or higher).

In addition to the national planning requirement, the London Plan 2021, which applies to all 32 London boroughs, also requires a fire statement. Policy D12 Fire Safety requires that :

‘All major development proposals should be submitted with a Fire Statement, which is an independent fire strategy, produced by a third party, suitably qualified assessor’

In comparison to the national Gateway One Fire Statements, the London Plan Policy D12:

+ applies to all land uses

+ applies to a lower size threshold

+ requires more fire safety elements to be demonstrated as part of a planning application (all Fire related Building Regulations B1 to B5).

The wider requirement of the London Plan extends the scope from Major Developments to Householder and non-major developments. In this latter category the requirement is for a Reasonable Exception Statement (RES). The RES should clearly set out which policy criteria is not relevant to the development and why.

Outline planning permission applications are exempt from the requirement to submit gateway one fire statements because matters like layout and scale can be reserved.