The HSE’s Chief Inspection of Buildings, Peter Baker, has recently provided his review of the first year of Planning Gateway One for high-rise residential buildings. Planning Gateway One is the first of three gateways that will ultimately apply to works being carried out in high-rise residential buildings, with the other two due to come into effect in October 2023.  Planning Gateway One was the first change to the regulatory framework for building safety following the Grenfell Tower tragedy and aimed to ensure that fire safety issues are considered at the earliest possible stage in the development process. It requires a developer to submit a fire statement setting out fire safety considerations specific to a development with an application for planning permission. This fire statement is then reviewed by the Health and Safety Executive as a statutory consultee.

The HSE’s review provides an interesting insight, showing that the HSE received just over 1,300 consultation requests from local planning authorities on planning applications for developments. Around 30% of these cases included resubmissions following HSE’s advice to planning authorities. The HSE stated that they had “raised fire safety concerns related to land use planning in over half of the cases, ranging from issues that could be easily rectified with straightforward modifications to building layout and access, to the need for significant changes, including additional firefighting shafts, the location of fire mains, fire appliance accessibility, escape route protection, and preventing fire spread to other buildings”.

It is worth noting that the HSE offers a free fire safety and planning pre-application service, which could be used by designers and consultants to seek further advice on fire safety design at a pre-application stage of a project. This could minimise the likelihood of project delays later in the planning process.