Offices, Shops & Similar Premises Guide
This guidance is applicable to general fire safety in premises used as an office or shop or for similar activities. This includes buildings or premises used for:
- Office, administrative or clerical purposes (including writing, book-keeping, sorting papers, filing, typing, duplicating, machine calculating, police work, fire and rescue service work, drawing and editorial preparation of work for publication);
- Financial transactions (including banking and building society work);
- Communications (including postal, telegraph and radio, television, film, audio or video recording or performance (not open to the public));
- Healthcare such as GP surgeries, health centres and dental surgeries;
- Retail or wholesale trade or business (including sales by auction, self-selection and over the counter wholesale trading);
- Hairdressing and beauty or body care; or
- Delivering or uplifting goods by members of the public in connection with cleaning, repair, hire or other treatment or (except in the case of the repair of motor vehicles) of themselves carrying out such cleaning, repair or other treatment.
It is also suitable for individual units or occupancies within larger multi-use and/or multi-occupied complexes, such as shopping centres where there is a need for co-ordination and to take account of the overall fire safety arrangements in the complex.
As work progressed on the series of fire safety guides, a number of changes were made to the earlier guides, including Practical Fire Safety Guidance for Offices, Shops & Similar Premises. These changes were made in order to ensure consistency across the series, especially in respect of generic text. The revised guide is available in PDF format by clicking on the link below.