The LWF Blog
Fire Safety for Facilities Management Personnel – Fire Safety Legislation – Part 8
August 28, 2019 12:15 pmLawrence Webster Forrest (LWF) is a specialist fire engineering and fire risk management consultancy whose aim is to give information on best practice in fire safety for facilities management personnel through this blog series. In part 7, we discussed at regulation B5 of the Building Regulations and how ongoing control of a building’s fire safety provision in England and Wales is effected by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. In part 8, we take a look at the building regulations in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
In Scotland, the Building (Scotland) Regulations 2004 remains similar to those principles contained within the Building Regulations 2000 (for England and Wales) but with one fairly major additional requirement, that automatic life-safety fire suppression systems are required in enclosed shopping centres, residential care facilities, sheltered housing and high-rise blocks of flats.
Another fairly noticeable difference is that the regulations only require the provision of fire warning systems to dwellings, residential buildings and enclosed shopping centres.
In England and Wales, control of any electrical installations (via the Building Regulations) only applies in respect of domestic premises, in Scotland, however, the regulations require that the design and construction of buildings be completed in a way which ensures electrical installations do not become a source of fire. This is not to say that regulations don’t exist in England & Wales, appropriate safety considerations are provided in other ways.
As in England and Wales, the regulations are contained within the stated document, while the technical breakdown appears in a separate one. The Regulations in Scotland are supported by two technical handbooks, one for domestic and the other for non-domestic premises. The Building standards technical handbook 2019: domestic buildings and Building standards technical handbook 2019: non-domestic buildings are produced by the Local Government and Communities Directorate in the Scottish government.
The Building Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000 are almost the same as the Building Regulations 2000 (England and Wales) with the overall wording of the functional requirements being similar within regulations E2-E6 in the N.I. regulations to those contained in sections B1-B5 of the England and Wales legislation.
The technical guide for the Building Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2000 can be found in Technical Booklet E which is produced by the N.I. Department of Finance. The recommendations contained within are very similar, but not identical, to those contained within Approved Document B.
LWF will continue this blog series in part 9 by looking at local acts which existed to lay out additional requirements to those required by national regulations. In the meantime, if you have any queries about your own facilities or wish to discuss this blog series, please contact Peter Gyere in the first instance on 0800 410 1130.
Lawrence Webster Forrest is a fire engineering consultancy based in Surrey with over 25 years’ experience, which provides a wide range of consultancy services to professionals involved in the design, development and construction and operation of buildings.
While care has been taken to ensure that information contained in LWF’s publications is true and correct at the time of publication, changes in circumstances after the time of publication may impact on the accuracy of this information.