The smallest premises are where we find the most missing paperwork, because everyone assumed the rules were for bigger businesses.
Every shop, office and salon in Wales needs a recorded fire risk assessment under the Fire Safety Order, however small: since 1 October 2023 the exemption for businesses with fewer than five employees has gone. The assessment covers the escape route, detection and alarm, electrical and heating risks, and what staff are expected to do.
The five-employee recording threshold no longer exists in Wales. It went on 1 October 2023 under section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022. If your fire safety file is a two-page tick sheet from 2019, it does not meet the current requirement.
Independent retail in Narberth, Tenby and Haverfordwest is exactly the group this caught. Nobody wrote to tell them.
Most of it is cheap to put right. All of it is expensive if a fire officer finds it first.
Yes. The duty never depended on headcount, only the recording exemption did, and that went on 1 October 2023. A two-person shop now has to record its assessment in full.
Usually shared. You control the unit, the freeholder or managing agent controls the common parts, and the law expects you to co-operate and exchange information. In practice, whoever gets the letter first is the one who has to sort it out.
Not always. In a single open room where anyone could see a fire and shout, a manual system or even none may be reasonable. The assessment says what your building justifies rather than selling you a system.
Peroxide, aerosols, heat appliances, and clients under dryers who cannot get up quickly. Small premises, but a genuinely different risk profile from an office.
Where the duty sits between a shop tenant and a building owner.
Ten things worth fixing before anyone inspects your premises.
Small premises sit at the bottom of the range.
Tell us the building and we will give you a price on the phone. Most assessments are booked within the week.