Why a fire strategy template will not pass building control

A fire strategy template will not pass building control because a fire strategy is not a form. It is reasoning about one building. Travel distances, compartment lines, occupancy and evacuation approach come from its geometry and use. A template gives you headings. Building control assesses what sits under the headings, which no template can supply.

That is the whole answer. The rest of this page sets out what the assessor actually tests, which part of a template is genuinely worth keeping, and the narrow set of projects where a short annotated statement really is enough.

What building control actually assesses

Building control does not tick boxes against a document structure. Bodies in England and Wales are testing whether the design meets the functional requirements of Part B of the Building Regulations, and whether you have shown your working.

Three things get scrutinised.

Whether the numbers came from this building. Travel distances measured from the furthest point of each room. Stair widths against the population they serve. Compartment lines drawn where they actually run. A template contains the guidance figures. It cannot contain your figures, because it has never seen your plans.

Whether departures from guidance are identified and justified. Almost every real building departs from Approved Document B somewhere. In England that is the 2019 edition incorporating the 2020, 2022 and 2025 amendments, published on 11 March 2025, which already has further amendments dated 2026 and 2029 collated into it. Wales publishes its own Approved Document B, still based on the 2006 edition and most recently amended by a slip that took effect on 20 December 2025. That is normal and acceptable, provided the departure is named, quantified and justified with a compensating measure that is written down. A template has no departures in it, because it does not know the design. A document listing no departures, for a building that visibly has some, reads as a document nobody checked.

Whether the author understood the building. Assessors read a great many of these. Generic prose is obvious within a page. Phrases such as “adequate provision has been made” and “in accordance with current standards” tell the reader nothing, and they signal that the analysis was avoided rather than done.

The specific things a template cannot contain

Here is the concrete list. Every item has to be worked out from your drawings and your intended use, and every item gets checked.

Travel distances in single-direction and multi-direction escape, measured route by route. Occupancy figures derived from floor area and actual use. Exit capacity and stair width calculations. The location of every compartment line and the fire resistance period each one needs. Structural fire resistance for the frame. Cavity barrier positions. External wall build-up, the combustibility restrictions that apply by building height and use, and boundary distance calculations for unprotected areas. In England, regulation 7(2) of the Building Regulations 2010 requires materials in the external walls and specified attachments of a relevant building, meaning one with a storey at least 18 metres above ground level containing dwellings, an institution or a room for residential purposes, to achieve European class A2-s1, d0 or A1, and since 1 December 2022 relevant metal composite material has been banned in the external walls of any building at any height. Wales lowered its own threshold from 15 metres to 11 metres and added hostels, hotels and boarding houses to the buildings covered, with effect from 20 December 2025. Detection and alarm category. Smoke control performance requirements. Fire service vehicle access, hydrant distances and riser outlet locations. Refuge provision and evacuation lift arrangements. And the management assumptions the whole strategy quietly depends on.

That list is not a sales argument. It is the content of the document. A template can hold the headings for all of it and none of the answers.

Template compared with an assessed strategy

What a downloadable template gives you, compared with an assessed, building-specific fire strategy.

The part of a template that is genuinely useful

Templates are not worthless. They are useful for one thing, which is scoping. If you are the person commissioning the work, a structure tells you what to ask for and lets you compare quotes fairly.

Use it as a checklist against a proposal. A quote that covers all of the following is comparable with another that does. A quote that covers half of them is cheaper for a reason.

Building description and scope, including exclusions. Design basis and the guidance route chosen. Occupancy and evacuation approach. Means of escape with figures. Compartmentation and structural fire resistance. Internal and external fire spread. Detection, alarm, smoke control and suppression. Fire service access and facilities. Management assumptions. Marked-up drawings. Named author and a competence statement. And, importantly, whether responding to building control comments sits inside the fee or is charged as an extra.

That last line is where fixed fees quietly turn into variable ones. Ask about it before you appoint, in writing.

When you genuinely do not need a full strategy

This is the honest part, and it matters more than any sales pitch.

Some projects are simple enough that a full standalone document is not required. A small single-storey building following Approved Document B without departure, with a straightforward layout and a common use class, may be signed off on annotated drawings and a short compliance statement. Your building control body will tell you. Ask them directly at the outset, in writing, and keep the answer on file.

You are outside that group if any of the following is true. The building meets the higher-risk definition and falls into the regime introduced by the Building Safety Act 2022. In England a higher-risk building during occupation is one that is at least 18 metres in height or has at least 7 storeys, and contains at least 2 residential units. Wales sets its own criteria: for the design and construction phase, a building at least 18 metres in height or with at least 7 storeys that contains at least one residential unit, a hospital with at least one overnight bed, a care home or a children’s home. It has more than one storey with any complexity in the escape arrangements. It has a basement or a car park. It involves a change of use, particularly to residential. It has an atrium, an open-plan layout beyond the guidance limits, or a single stair. It relies on stay put, phased evacuation or progressive horizontal evacuation. It has sleeping accommodation. Or the design departs from guidance anywhere.

In those cases the document is not a formality, and filling in a template will cost you more time than commissioning the work, because the comments will come back and you will still need somebody to answer them.

What happens when a templated document is submitted

The pattern is consistent. The document goes in. Building control returns a request for further information listing the missing analysis: travel distances, compartmentation extents, justification for the departure they spotted. The applicant then either engages a consultant under time pressure with the design already fixed, or the project waits.

The second-order cost is worse than the fee. A compartment line that has to move after the frame is up, or a stair that has to widen after the shell is complete, is a serious sum. Caught at design stage it is a redrawn line.

What to do instead

If you have already downloaded a template, keep it as a scoping checklist. Then take three steps.

Ask your building control body, in writing, what level of fire safety documentation they expect for this specific project, and keep the reply.

Assemble your drawings, the intended use of every space and the occupancy you expect. That is what any competent assessor will ask for first, and having it ready shortens the whole process.

Then get the analysis done by somebody who will put their name on it. That is what a fire strategy consultant does, and it produces a fire strategy report that survives assessment. If you also need the marked-up drawing set, see fire strategy drawings. If the building already exists and nothing was ever documented, the route is a retrospective fire strategy. Work is arranged across England and Wales.