The Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025 introduce new requirements designed to improve fire safety and evacuation procedures for residents who might struggle to leave their building by themselves during an emergency, such as a fire.
These regulations focus on “relevant residents”, people who need Residential Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPs). This includes residents with impairments that affect their ability to evacuate on their own, whether that’s physical mobility challenges, cognitive impairments, or sight and hearing difficulties.
The responsible person has a duty to identify which residents might need PEEPs. It requires having proper conversations with residents and conducting person-centred fire risk assessments to understand the specific risks each person faces and how their fire safety and evacuation can be improved.
An emergency evacuation statement must be agreed upon between the resident and the responsible person. This statement clearly sets out what the resident should do in an emergency situation.
There’s also an important information-sharing requirement. The responsible person must share certain details with the Fire and Rescue Authority to help them plan their operational response and carry out evacuations if needed. The resident must explicitly agree to this information being shared.
The information that gets shared includes:
- The resident’s flat number
- The resident’s floor number
- Basic information about the level of assistance the resident might need to evacuate
- Whether the resident has an emergency evacuation statement
This information can be shared with the fire service by storing it in a secure information box that’s accessible to the fire service. This box must contain current and accurate premises information, including details required under the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022.
The responsible person also has an ongoing responsibility to regularly review the person-centred fire risk assessment, emergency evacuation statements, and emergency evacuation plans.
Why These Regulations Matter
These new regulations stem directly from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 Report, which made two crucial recommendations:
The first recommendation focused on Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans: “the owner and manager of every high-rise residential building be required by law to prepare personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs) for all residents whose ability to self-evacuate may be compromised (such as persons with reduced mobility or cognition)” and “that the owner and manager of every high-rise residential building be required by law to include up-to-date information about persons with reduced mobility and their associated PEEPs in the premises information box“.
The second recommendation addressed evacuation plans more broadly: “the owner and manager of every high-rise residential building be required by law to draw up and keep under regular review evacuation plans, copies of which are to be provided in electronic and paper form to their local fire and rescue service and placed in an information box on the premises“.
Last Updated: 5th August 2025