Fire Safety Regulations 2022! – Does this affect you? We can help!
(Building owners / Managers / Responsible persons have a duty to act on this)
Overview of the Fire Safety regulations:
The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 are now law and form part of a package of sensible, risk mitigating fire safety measures that the government is delivering following the Grenfell Tower fire to keep the public safe.
The regulations apply to existing buildings.
These regulations have made it a requirement in law for responsible persons of high-rise blocks of flats to provide information to Fire and Rescue Services to assist them to plan and, if needed, provide an effective operational response.
- Specifically, the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 made it a legal requirement from 23 January 2023 for responsible persons of multi-resident and high-rise residential buildings across England to draw up and share electronically up-to-date floor plans identifying the location of key fire-fighting equipment with their local fire and rescue services. Drawings that need to be prepared are Floor plans that displays crucial firefighting equipment for each building level alongside a Master/Orientation plan and Sectional Schematic for the building.
Further information on the new Regulations can be found on the Government website here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-fire-safety-regulations-come-into-force-in-england
The responsible person/building owner is required to provide their local fire and rescue authority with a Master/Orientation plan which should include the location of all key fire-fighting equipment. The plans should be simple, to assist quick and critical decisions taken by operational fire-fighters during an incident. Each building should also have a hard copy of this drawing in place, in a secure information box on site.
Who needs to act on this?
Essentially, if you own or manage a building that houses multiple residents, the new act applies to you. There are certain stages of urgency to register and comply to the new act (high rise flats, buildings that meet a certain criteria etc) that will need to act quicker with regards to compliance, but ultimately, any building that caters for multiple residents should be moving on this now. Not only from a legal ‘box tick’ perspective, but from a moral responsible person stand point.
How we can help you:
A1 Designs offers an array of high-level survey and CAD / design solutions to a variety of industries and sectors. Specifically with fire plans in mind, we survey your building using efficient survey methods and equipment, which allows us to carry out site visits rapidly and without hassle to residents. This refined survey approach allows us to be competitive with our costs, which in turn saves you money! From the initial site visit, we create a comprehensive set of Regulation 6 drawings that display the crucial detail to satisfy compliance of the Fire Safety Regulations 2022. We deliver the drawing set in a digital format (DWG & PDF) which is then kept by the responsible person/s (building owner / facilities management teams etc) and can be passed on to local fire & rescue authorities for their records and in some cases to residents themselves to ensure they have access to the latest fire safety information while residing within the building.
(Fire Plan drawing example created by A1-Designs in accordance with fire safety ‘regulation 6’ criteria)
The Process:
A1 Designs will provide the following services:
- Site visit / survey to capture the existing building layout and fire equipment.
- Creation of ‘Digital Twin’ of building – optional.
- Creation of regulation spec Floor plans / Fire plan drawings, Orientation Plans and Sectional Schematics to display crucial fire equipment and general arrangement of building levels to meet new fire safety regulation compliance requirement.
Benefits:
- Swift and Efficient process (to minimise disruption to residents and building owner / management teams).
- Cost effective solution to ensure building owners ‘responsible persons’ meet the compliance criteria as cost effectively as possible.
- Industry leading output and delivery – Combining the 2D floor plans with the digital twin offers maximum compliance, alongside many additional features that building owners and facilities teams will benefit from.
Optional Extra – Digital Twin of Building
A1 Designs can also capture a ‘digital twin’ of your building during our site visit if desirable. This digital twin model can be an extremely useful addition, as it allows the desired viewer (fire crews / facilities teams / contractors / residents etc) to walk around and explore the building virtually from any mobile device or computer and from anywhere, which not only gives them the opportunity to pre-plan evacuation procedures, but also offers the possibility to include crucial and important information regarding fire equipment and locations of equipment to ensure the most effective and efficient response is made prior to arriving at the building! – This has an obvious advantage when considering emergency situations, but also offers a huge benefit with the ongoing maintenance and facilities management of buildings, as this virtual model can be shared and viewed by collaborators and contractors etc to avoid multiple and costly site visits.
For more information or to discuss a project, please contact one of our team:
T: 0800 0582489 or 01296 568368