Fire safety in almost every premises in Greater London is enforced by the London Fire Brigade acting as the fire and rescue authority. The duty itself is national: the responsible person must make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the fire risks, record the significant findings, and act on them. What is particular to London is the building stock the assessment has to describe.
What the assessment has to establish
Who could be harmed and how. The sources of ignition, the fuel and the oxygen. The means of escape and whether they work for the people actually in the building. The detection and warning arrangements. The fire fighting equipment. The maintenance regime. And the management arrangements that all of it depends on. Significant findings are recorded, and an action plan with owners and dates is what turns an assessment into work.
The London building stock
Two things make the capital's caseload distinctive: a very large stock of period buildings converted to flats and to mixed use, where compartmentation was never designed and has been altered repeatedly; and a concentration of tall residential buildings, where the regime introduced after the Grenfell Tower Inquiry adds specific, dated duties on top of the general ones. Many buildings are both period and converted, which is the hardest case to assess honestly.
Mixed use is the recurring problem
A shop or restaurant on the ground floor with flats above is the archetypal London arrangement and the archetypal fire safety failure, because the commercial risk sits underneath the sleeping risk and the two are often in different ownership. The assessment has to cover the common parts and the interaction, and agreeing who the responsible person is for what is frequently the first task rather than a formality.
Enforcement in practice
The brigade audits premises, responds to complaints and follows up after incidents. Its powers run from informal advice through enforcement notices to prohibition notices that stop a building being used. An assessment that exists, is current, is specific to the building and has an action plan being worked through is what an audit is looking for; a generic document with no findings is worse than none, because it demonstrates the duty was considered and not discharged.
Questions people ask about london fire risk assessments
Who enforces fire safety in London?
The London Fire Brigade for almost all premises. A small number of premises types are enforced by other authorities, and Crown premises have their own arrangements.
Does a small London office need a written assessment?
The significant findings must be recorded where five or more people are employed, where a licence is in force, or where an alarm notice applies. In practice almost every business records them, because the record is the only evidence the duty was met.
How often should a London assessment be reviewed?
When it is no longer valid or after a significant change. Annual review is common practice, and in a converted or mixed use building changes happen more often than anybody records.