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

November 1, 2021 12:39 pm

Planning Gateway One was introduced on 1^st August 2021, as an amendment to the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order. 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.

Section 8 of the Fire Statement Form requests details of any issues which might affect the fire safety of the development, in no more than 500 words.

Fire Statement Form Section 8

Any specific issues which are relevant should be explained in the provided free form text box, along with any additional explanation which might be necessary relating to the following parts of Section 6 of the form, which relates to the Building Schedule.

Balconies
External wall systems
Evacuation approach
Automatic suppression – in cases where an alternative automatic suppression system is proposed and ‘other’ option is suggested
Accessible housing provided – detail might be given on the breakdown or storey locations of each type of accessible housing where M4(2) and M4(3) dwellings are proposed on the same storey (definitions and further information can be found in Part Eleven of this blog series).

As an example, the drop-down options relating to automatic suppression in Section 6 are limited to sprinklers for various uses and an ‘other’ option. Where a building within the development is to adopt a water-mist suppression system as opposed to a sprinkler system, further details and explanation should be provided in Section 8.

As with all sections of the Fire Statement Form, the information provided should demonstrate the incorporation of thinking on fire safety into the proposals as they relate to land use planning.

Section 9 of the Fire Statement Form relates to ‘Local development document policies relating to fire safety’

section 9 of the fire statement form

In the free form text box provided for section 9 (again, with a 500 word limit), an explanation of how any policies relating to fire safety in relevant local development documents have been taken into account should be given.

The Planning Portal website defines local development documents as follows:

“Local Development Documents – These include Development Plan Documents (which form part of the statutory development plan) and Supplementary Planning Documents (which do not form part of the statutory development plan). LDDs collectively deliver the spatial planning strategy for the local planning authority’s area.”

As an example, The London Plan is the spatial development strategy for the Greater London area that is published by the Greater London Authority. Policy D12 of the London Plan requires development proposals to achieve the highest standards of fire safety, embedding these at the earliest possible stage.

Where there are no policies of this kind, the section should be left blank.

In part thirteen of this series, LWF will look at Section 10 and 11 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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