At the time of the creation of the United Kingdom in 1801, England, Scotland, and Great Britain had some legislation already in place dealing with the issues of fire safety.

As a result, King Charles II issued a proclamation saying that all buildings were to be built out of stone and roads were to be widened.

The Petroleum (Consolidation) Act 1928, as amended by Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations 2002 (SI 2002/2776), changed the licensing regime and now requires only that anyone operating a petrol filling station have a licence.

Thus "as originally built" buildings were exempt from the new rules from 1974 until the advent of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

[7] Ten people were trapped in the fourth floor and one man fell to his death whilst assisting others to safety from a window ledge.

This fire prompted the Government to amend the Office Shops and Railway Premises Act (OSRA) in line with the Factories Act 1961 and in 1963 a new OSRA was introduced On Boxing Day 1969, a fire at the Rose and Crown Hotel, Saffron Walden[8] killed eleven people whilst seventeen were rescued.

One of the changes introduced in 1987 was for the fire authority to issue prohibition notices directly, without the need to apply to the court.

Places of public entertainment such as cinemas, theatres and nightclubs were never designated so the powers of inspection and enforcement remained with the local authority licensing department.

In many areas, the fire brigade carried out the inspections on behalf of the licensing department, but had no powers other than those granted by section 10 (Prohibition Notice).

The act is still in force on the Isle of Man, with hotels, licensed premises and places of entertainment requiring a fire certificate.

The Fire Precautions (Factories, Offices, Shops and Railway Premises) Regulations 1976, gave some updates to the FPA and cleared several points about self-employed workers, the numbers of hours worked (part-time workers) and how aggregation of these could be used to bring some "grey" premises into the scope of requiring a fire certificate.

These regulations were brought in to require premises having over a threshold quantity or using certain named hazardous substances to possess a fire certificate.

See Approved Document - Part B - Fire Safety Vol 1 & 2 (available to download free from the UK Government's "Planning Portal" website).

Note: building regulations and fire safety laws are different, but similar, in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

This was at the height of deregulation and the government, architects, commerce and industry considered that fire brigades were too inflexible and demanded belt and braces solutions.

Section 4 of the Fire Precautions Act did give some limited powers to issue a 'Notice of Steps' to be taken to correct any defects.

The fire brigades enforced the regulations and conducted limited inspections to ensure employers are carrying out their responsibilities.

Laws such as the Local Government Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1976 were major legislation but contain sections covering fire safety of some outdoors events, private film shows, neon signs and some licensed premises that fell outside the scope of the 2003 Act.

Licensed premises (pubs, clubs, cinemas, theatres) were classed as providing a service, not as shops, and so did not normally fall within the designated groups in the FPA, so some never needed fire certificates.

The job of these departments is to educate by talking to school children and vulnerable areas of the community and to assist the public, with many FRS running campaigns, offering free smoke detectors as part of the drive to reduce deaths in the home.

This Act reformed (and expanded) the former narrow "unfitness standard", and gave (in England and Wales) all Environmental Health Officers strong enforcement powers, to inspect any dwelling (rented, leased, owner-occupied, or what ever) for the 23 defined "hazards".

If they fail to so, the local council's EHOs have a duty to consider taking appropriate legal action to protect the community at large.

(Womack and Bone LLP) In 2000, the government in the form of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (OPDM) set up a review of the fire safety legislation led by the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott MP and found that there were some 80[18] acts of Parliament or parts of acts which specified fire safety legislation.

The following must be provided (to protect their employees and anyone else who may lawfully be on or near the premises): The Fire Safety Order then tells the responsible person (employer, person in control of the building, or owner) how they must assess these items in order to protect their employees and anyone else who may lawfully be on or near their premises.

However, there are other enforcing authorities - the Health and Safety Executive for most construction sites and on ships under construction, the Defence Fire and Rescue Service for defence premises, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) for nuclear sites, and the local authority for sports grounds.

The Fire Safety Act provides an explicit explanation of the parameters that fall under the Fire Safety Order 2005, such as structures, external walls (cladding and balconies alike), including individual flat entrance doors between domestic properties and common areas in multi-occupied residential buildings.

[21] It is essential to regularly review and update fire risk assessments in order to guarantee that the premises can be occupied safely.

The regulations mandate that Responsible Parties in multi-level residential dwellings take appropriate actions depending on the building's height.

HHSRS - One should not forget the parallel powers of each local council's EHO (Environmental Health Officer) to enforce fire safety within both single dwellings and in blocks of flats and buildings providing 'Housing in Multiple Occupation' (HMO), under their Housing Act 2004 (HHSRS/"unfitness") powers.

started to prosecute owners and operators of illegally built or converted "dwellings" in non-habitable buildings, such as 'domestic garages in gardens' and disused offices, public houses, factories, under the Fire Safety Order 2005.