Yes, without exception, worth mentioning. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 applies to virtually every non-domestic premises in England, from a unit on Cressex Business Park to a two-chair barbershop near the Eden Centre. Yet business owners repeat the same handful of reasons for not having one, and each belief collapses on contact with the actual law. Take them in turn.
“We’re Too Small For That To Apply To Us”
Size never exempted anyone, and a recent change removed the last trace of this idea. Until October 2023, businesses with fewer than five employees had to carry out an assessment, but could keep it in their heads. Section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 states that every business must now record its full fire risk assessment in writing, whether it employs fifty people or none at all. A sole trader running a kiosk is subject to the same duties as a factory. The paperwork scales with the risk; the obligation does not.
“I Rent The Unit, So It’s My Landlord’s Problem”
The Order places duties on the Responsible Person, defined as whoever has control over the premises or any part of them, and, in a rented building, that usually means both parties at once. Your landlord typically carries responsibility for the structure and any shared areas, stairwells, corridors, and communal alarms. You carry it for everything inside your demise: your layout, your stock, your staff, your escape routes. The lease decides the exact split, and assuming the other side has it covered is how gaps appear precisely where fires start.
“We Had One Done When We Moved In”
An assessment describes the building, the people and the processes on the day it was written. Change any of those, and the document stops describing your business. New machinery, more staff, a mezzanine added for storage, a switch to lithium battery stock: each one can quietly turn a valid assessment into an out-of-date one. The law requires the assessment to be kept current, not merely to exist in a drawer.
“Nobody Ever Checks”
Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service checks. Its protection officers audit local businesses through planned inspections, after complaints, and after any fire, and the first document they request is the assessment. The consequences run from informal advice through enforcement and prohibition notices, which can shut a premises on the spot, up to prosecution. The courts can impose unlimited fines and up to two years’ imprisonment for serious breaches, and they have jailed business owners under this Order. After any fire, the absence of a suitable assessment converts an insurance claim into an argument and a tragedy into a criminal case.
“It’s A Box-Ticking Exercise Anyway”
High Wycombe’s own business stock argues otherwise. The town’s furniture-making heritage left it full of joinery workshops and timber trades where wood dust and finishing solvents create genuine ignition risk. The older buildings around the town centre hide voids, shared escape routes and decades of modification. The distribution units along the M40 corridor stack racking to the roofline. A proper assessment walks through your specific ignition sources, fuel, escape routes and vulnerable people, then tells you what to fix in priority order. Done well, it is the cheapest piece of risk management your business will ever buy.
Getting It Done Properly
The law lets you assess your own premises if you are competent to do so, and for a simple, low-risk office, that can work. For anything with sleeping risk, processes, multiple floors or the public on site, commission professional fire risk assessments in High Wycombe from an accredited assessor. The duty is yours either way. The Order has applied to your business since 2006; the only open question is whether the document exists before the inspector or the fire arrives.