Fire Safety in New, Extended or Altered Buildings

Fire Safety in new, extended or altered buildings is the responsibility of the building owner. The responsibility for checking that the Building Regulations have been met falls to Building Control Bodies – either from the Local Authority (Building Control Department) or Approved Inspectors from the private sector. The person carrying out the work has the choice of where to get approval for the building work.

There are three relevant guidance documents:

  • General guidance, applying to most building work (Building Regulations: Approved Document Part B (ADB) and other government guidance to support legislative requirements)
  • Advanced guidance (BS 9999) essentially introduces a middle route between ADB and BS 7974:2019
  • High-level guidance on fire safety engineered solutions for larger, more complex buildings (BS 7974:2019)

It is important that those dealing with fire safety matters have a working knowledge of this guidance for background information.

Approved Document Part B Fire Safety

The Department of Communities and Local Government who is responsible for Building Regulations has provided the approved document online Approved Document Part B Fire Safety.

British Standard 9999

BS 9999 : 2017 Code of practice for fire safety in the design, management and use of buildings and is the standard which uses risk profiles instead of prescripted methods as used in ADB.

British Standard 7974

BS 7974:2019. Application of fire safety engineering principles to the design of buildings provides guidance on a fully fire-engineered solution.

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February 2, 2022[Last updated: February 9, 2022]

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