Let us take care of your fire risk assessment — properly, and without the fuss.

In short, yes. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (England & Wales), almost every non-domestic building — plus the shared areas of blocks of flats and other multi-occupied residential buildings — must have a "suitable and sufficient" fire risk assessment.

A fire risk assessment is simply a structured look at your building to identify fire hazards, check the precautions already in place, and set out clearly what — if anything — needs improving. It's a legal duty rather than a nice-to-have, and responsibility for it sits with the "responsible person" for the premises.

It's whoever has control of the premises — that could be an employer, the building owner, a landlord, an occupier, or a managing agent. There isn't always just one: in a building with several tenants, for example, a landlord is usually responsible for shared areas like stairwells and corridors, while each tenant looks after their own unit.

If you're not sure whether that's you, it's worth checking — the duty applies whether or not you realise it does.

They're taken seriously. Fire and rescue authorities can issue an enforcement notice requiring you to make improvements by a set date, or in more serious cases a prohibition notice that restricts or stops use of all or part of the building until issues are fixed.

Beyond that, the Fire Safety Order carries unlimited fines and, in the most serious cases, imprisonment. But the legal risk is really secondary — an inadequate assessment also means the people using your building are less safe, which is the actual point of having one.

No — though the two get mixed up a lot. Your insurer may well ask to see a fire risk assessment as part of their own checks, but the assessment itself is a distinct legal document required under fire safety law, not an insurance product.

Having a fire risk assessment doesn't automatically satisfy every condition in your policy, and having buildings insurance doesn't remove your legal duty to have an assessment. Worth checking your policy wording separately if you're unsure.

We walk the whole building with you, or whoever knows it best, and look at the things that matter for fire safety: escape routes, fire detection and alarm systems, compartmentation (how well fire and smoke would be contained if something went wrong), signage, fire doors, emergency lighting, and staff training and record-keeping.

We'll ask questions as we go and take photos where it's useful, then write everything up into a report with clear, prioritised recommendations — nothing left vague or left for you to interpret.

It depends on the size and complexity of the building. A small office or shop might take an hour or two on site; a larger multi-let building or a site with a more complicated layout will take longer.

Once we've visited, the written report typically lands with you within about a week — sooner for straightforward premises. We'll always give you a realistic estimate for your specific building before we start.

As a general rule, once a year. But don't wait for the anniversary if something significant changes in the meantime — a renovation or refit, a change of use, a fire safety incident (even a near miss), or a change in who occupies the building or how it's laid out.

The assessment needs to reflect the building as it actually is now, not as it was when it was last looked at.

We won't leave you with a list of problems and no direction. Every report comes with clear, prioritised recommendations, so you know straight away what's urgent and what can reasonably be planned in over time.

We don't carry out remedial building work ourselves — fitting new fire doors or upgrading an alarm system, for example — but we're happy to point you towards trades who can, and to check over the work afterwards if you'd like a second opinion that it addresses what was raised.

A fire risk assessment looks at the building as a whole and its general fire precautions — it's the legal baseline every non-domestic building needs. A Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan (PEEP) is more specific: it's a plan for how an individual who might need extra help to evacuate — because of a disability, a mobility issue, or another reason — will get out safely.

A fire safety audit tends to be a more detailed check against a particular standard or set of internal policies, often used by larger organisations on top of their fire risk assessment. If you're not sure which one you actually need, tell us a bit about your building and we'll point you the right way.

[Add your specific memberships and qualifications here — for example, membership of a body such as the Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE), the Institute of Fire Safety Managers (IFSM), NAFRAT, or BAFE registration, plus any relevant training certificates.]

Offices, shops and retail units, factories and workshops, and places of worship are our core work, and we also take on residential blocks and HMOs. If your building falls outside that — a school, care home, warehouse or hospitality venue, for instance — get in touch anyway; we cover a broad range of non-domestic premises and can tell you quickly whether it's a good fit.

Cost depends mainly on the size of the building, how many floors and rooms it has, how complex the layout is, and how many people use it. Because of that, we don't publish a flat price list — but we'll always agree a fixed price upfront, based on a quick chat about your premises, so there are no surprises once the work is done.

We're based in Stroud and cover Gloucestershire and into Worcestershire as standard — including Gloucester, Cheltenham, Cirencester, Tewkesbury and Worcester. Outside that area? Get in touch anyway — we're happy to travel further afield where the job allows.

This comes up a lot, and it's an important one to get right. If a building has significant fire safety concerns around its external walls or cladding, that typically falls under the Building Safety Act 2022 and may call for a PAS 9980 external wall fire review — a more specialised piece of work than a standard fire risk assessment.

[Confirm here whether you carry out PAS 9980 external wall assessments directly, or whether you'd refer clients on to a specialist for that specific piece of work — I've left this open so the wording matches what you actually offer.] Either way, get in touch and we'll point you in the right direction.