If you are the responsible person for a high rise building (at least 18m or 7 storeys in height), you are legally required to provide us (the Fire and Rescue Service) with information that helps us plan our response to fires in your building.
You must provide digital copies.
You must tell us when they’re faulty and when they’re fixed.
You must provide information about design, materials and changes to your building’s walls.
Including record keeping, assessments and information you must provide to residents
These legal duties are set out in the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022.
Building plans and floor plans
You are legally required to give us up-to-date plans of your building. We’ll use these if there’s a fire incident.
Your plans must be…
- clear, simple and easy to use
- clearly labelled with your building’s name and address
- stored in a single PDF file.
Floor plans requirements
The plans must clearly identify and distinguish between the following:
- Passenger lifts
- Lift for use by firefighters
- Evacuation lifts
- Inlets / outlets for dry-rising mains
- Inlets / outlets for wet-rising mains
- Smoke control systems
- Suppression systems
Your floor plans must cover all floors of the building. We would prefer for you to provide a separate plan for each floor, even if they are identical, so we can easily identify individual flat numbers on each floor.
Building plan requirements
You must provide a single page building plan which shows the building and its immediate surroundings. This will enable firefighters to orientate themselves.
The building plan must include all of the following:
- the environs of the building
- details of the use of the building, for example for commercial or residential purposes
- access for fire and rescue appliances
- the dimensions of the building
- information on the number of storeys of the building and the number of basement levels (if any)
- information regarding the presence of maisonettes or scissor section flats
- inlets for dry-rising mains
- inlets for wet-rising mains
- the location of shut-off controls for any sprinklers
- access points for the building
- the location of the secure information box
- the location of the controls for any smoke control system
- the location of any firefighting shaft
- the location of main stairways in the building
- the location of the controls for any evacuation alert system.
Example building and floor plans (PDF, 273KB)
Faults with lifts or firefighting equipment
If a lift (or other fire-fighting equipment) in your building is faulty and can’t be fixed within 24 hours, you are legally required to report it to us as soon as possible, arrange repairs, then tell us when it’s fixed.
External walls
You must give us the following information:
- A record of the design of the building external walls, including construction materials
- The level of risk that the design and materials pose to the spread of fire
- Steps you have taken to mitigate these risks, such as a waking watch or sprinkler system
- Any material changes made to external walls.
Submit information about external walls
If you don’t have all of this information, you must give us all the information you currently hold, update your fire risk assessment to include external walls, then provide this updated information as soon as possible.
Other responsibilities
As well as providing information to us, you are also legally required to do the following if you are the responsible person for a high rise building:
- Store copies of the building and floor plans in a secure information box attached to the building. You should provide at least two copies of each - laminated, A3-sized and printed in colour.
- Undertake monthly operational checks of lifts to be used by firefighters, evacuation lifts and other firefighting equipment.
- Install flat and floor number signage on every landing of a protected stairway and every protected corridor/lobby (or open access balcony) into which a firefighting lift opens. The signs should be visible from the top step of a firefighting stair and, where possible, from inside a firefighting lift when the lift car doors open.
- There are specifications around font size and height from the ground etc in Approved Document B
- Undertake best endeavours to carry out annual checks of flat entrance doors and quarterly checks of fire doors in common spaces.
- Provide fire safety instructions to their residents on how to report a fire and what to do if a fire occurs.
- Provide information to residents about the important role fire doors play in fire safety.
For more details of these legal responsibilities, please visit the NFCC website or read these Home Office factsheets.