The Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025 were made on 3 July 2025 and came into force on 6 April 2026. They are made under article 24 of the Fire Safety Order, so they sit alongside the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 rather than replacing anything. The questions that matter are not about what a PEEP is. They are about which buildings, what exactly has to be done, and who pays. The Regulations answer most of that, and they are short enough to read.
Which buildings
Regulation 3 defines a "specified residential building": a building with two or more sets of domestic premises that is at least 18 metres high, or has at least seven storeys, or is more than 11 metres high and has a simultaneous evacuation strategy. Height is measured to the top storey under Appendix D to Approved Document B. Storeys below ground are ignored, and a mezzanine counts as a storey only if its floor area is at least half that of the largest storey above ground.
The third limb is the one to watch. A block of fewer than seven storeys, between 11 and 18 metres, on a stay-put strategy is outside the Regulations. The same block, once the strategy is changed to simultaneous evacuation, is inside them. Where a fire risk assessment or a fire engineer moves a building to simultaneous evacuation, that change now carries a second set of duties with it, and the person recommending it should say so.
What the Responsible Person must do
For each building, in order:
- Identify. Use "reasonable endeavours" to identify relevant residents (regulation 5): people whose only or principal home is in the building and whose ability to evacuate unaided is compromised by a cognitive or physical impairment or condition (regulation 4).
- Offer an assessment. Offer each of them a person-centred fire risk assessment, and carry one out for anyone who asks (regulation 6).
- Mitigate. After discussion with the resident, put in place the measures that are "reasonable and proportionate" (regulation 7).
- Agree and record. Use reasonable endeavours to agree the resident's evacuation approach; where it is agreed, write it down as an emergency evacuation statement and give the resident a copy (regulation 8).
- Tell the fire service. With the resident's explicit consent, and only with it, give the local fire and rescue authority the flat number, the floor, basic information on the assistance needed, and whether there is an emergency evacuation statement (regulation 10).
- Plan the building. Prepare a building emergency evacuation plan, send it to the fire and rescue authority, and put a copy in the secure information box if there is one (regulation 13).
Everything is on a 12-month review: the assessment, the measures and the statement under regulation 9, and the building plan under regulation 13 — and sooner if there is reason to think something needs to change.
Who pays
This is where regulation 7 is more careful than most commentary on it. There are two kinds of measure. The first are measures the Responsible Person bears or shares across the residents — but the cost may only be shared where the measure benefits the majority of residents (regulation 7(2)). The second are measures the resident pays for, and the Responsible Person is not required to implement those unless the resident does pay (regulation 7(3)).
So a measure that helps one resident is not a service-charge item merely because the Regulations require it to be considered. Managing agents should expect that question at the first budget meeting after a PEEP is agreed, and should have the regulation in front of them when it is asked.
The secure information box
The fire and rescue authority chooses how it receives resident information: electronically or as a hard copy in a secure information box (regulation 10(3)). If it chooses the box and the building does not have one, the Responsible Person must install and maintain one, to the 2022 Regulations' standard (regulation 10(4)). That is a capital cost which depends on another body's choice. Ask your fire and rescue authority which route it uses before you budget.
What the Regulations leave open
In my view, three things will cause most of the difficulty.
"Reasonable endeavours" is undefined. The duty to identify residents is not a duty to know every resident's health. It is a duty to try properly — and the only evidence of trying is a record. A letter to every flat, a follow-up, a note of who replied and who did not, and the same again at turnover of occupation.
Consent governs the fire service, not the plan. A resident who declines to share information with the fire and rescue authority has not opted out of the person-centred assessment or the building plan. Those duties stand. Treat the two consents separately when you write to residents.
The Regulations do not say who carries the person-centred assessment out. They place the duty on the Responsible Person. Whether that is the managing agent, the fire risk assessor, or someone with care experience is left to the Responsible Person to decide and to justify.
What to do now
- Check each building against regulation 3, including the evacuation strategy, and write the answer on the building record.
- Record your identification exercise as you go. That record is the evidence of reasonable endeavours.
- Ask the fire and rescue authority how it wants resident information delivered.
- Prepare the building emergency evacuation plan whether or not you have identified any relevant residents — it must confirm either way (regulation 13(2)(b)).
- Diary the 12-month reviews from the date each statement or plan is first made.