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Fire Statements – Part Fourteen – How to fill out the application

November 17, 2021 9:31 pm

An amendment to the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order was made as of 1^st August 2021, known as Planning Gateway One. As a result of the changes, a form called a Fire Statement should be submitted with a planning application for any development including a relevant high-rise building.

LWF’s blog series on the Fire Statements has looked at background, implementation and, from part six onwards, how the Fire Statement form should be filled out.

In part fourteen of this blog series, we discuss Section 12 onwards of the Fire Statement form.

Section 12 of the Fire Statement Form requires information on Siting of Fire Appliances in no more than 200 words.

Details should be given on the areas available for fire appliances within the curtilage of the buildings on the development and the appliances accommodated. Reference may be made to previous answers in Section 6 of the form – Building Schedule, and to the guidance documents informing the proposed arrangements for Fire Service access and facilities, as given in Section 10.

Section 13 of the fire statement form relates to the suitability of water supply for the scale of the development proposed. The first part of the answer should constitute no more than 200 words in explanation.

The water supply referenced should relate to how it will be utilised by the Fire Service for firefighting purposes and not for general use. The information provided should look at the scale of the development in relation to the availability of water.

The second part of Section 13 is about the nature of the water supply. The answer is multiple-choice.

Open water – limited
Open water – unlimited
Hydrant – public
Hydrant – private
Tank supply

The third part of Section 13 asks ‘Does the proposed development rely on existing hydrants and, if so, are they currently usable/operable?’ There are only three possible answers:

Yes
No
Don’t know

The next blog in this series will be Part Fifteen, which will conclude the Fire Statement blog series by looking at Section 14 of the Fire Statement Form.

Links to all Fire Statement blogs are as follows:

LWF’s blog series on Fire Statements includes information on the type of buildings affected by the changes, details on what information must be included and provides an overview of the application process and form. If you have any queries about your own project or wish to discuss this blog series, please contact LWF on freephone 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.

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