Essex County Fire and Rescue Service Technical Checklist (for new developments)
- Continuation of road design to ensure safe and timely access and egress to and from new developments.
- Consideration for installation of an approved suppression system with better safety and more design freedom. Sprinkler considerations would help to isolate fire to the source and to ensure better safety for occupants/emergency services/reduce insurance costs. This may also afford developers more design freedom and scope for capacity in respect of distance from buildings to Fire appliance access points.
- Continued consultation with Water Authorities for fire hydrant / water main provisions and consideration to ensure sufficient strategically placed resources are made available for operational firefighting and with appropriate water pressure considerations.
- Ensure new fire hydrant installations are fully operational before permitting residents to occupy dwellings.
- Ensuring new fire hydrants are not installed within private driveways/gardens.
- Continuation of at least 3 forms of fire hydrant asset indication. Hydrant indicator plate/post, painted FH cover and painted adjacent kerb. In the absence of a kerb then a thermoplastic yellow road ‘H’ applied to the road surface.
- Section 106 agreement at planning application stage to ensure that the developer will bear the costs for any new fire hydrant installations deemed necessary by the Fire Authority where the new development exceeds 10 dwellings.
- Continuation of road design to include turning circle provision plus future consideration to appliance sizes to ensure adequate space to manoeuvre on a development;
- Where applicable door sets to carry dual certification ensuring compliance with Fire and security regulations. Such recommendations align with both The Independent Review of Building Regulations and Fire Safety(Dame Judith Hackitt authored) in the wake of and the review and recommendations resulting from the Grenfell Fire tragedy of 2017.
- Fire resistant cladding considerations that may fall outside of Building Control matters.
Page updated: 5/05/2020