Approved Document B Is Being Rewritten — What Fire Risk Assessors Should Watch For
The Building Safety Regulator is running a 14-week consultation on substantial changes to Approved Document B (ADB), the statutory guidance underpinning Part B of the Building Regulations. It closes at 11:59pm on 1 July 2026. Most of the coverage is being written for architects, engineers and contractors — but several of the proposed changes directly shape the buildings you'll be assessing for years to come. This is what to watch.
Why a design code consultation matters to you
ADB is design guidance. It tells designers and building control how to demonstrate Part B compliance for new work. It doesn't apply retrospectively and it doesn't bind the responsible person under the Fire Safety Order.
So why care? Two reasons.
First, the BSR is explicitly tying the ADB framework to the fire risk assessment. The consultation proposes new text stating that dutyholders should "consider the content of the fire risk assessment required by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 when setting the scope of the building works" — and that improvements to current fire safety measures may be proportionate under the FSO even where the Building Regulations don't strictly require them. If adopted, your FRA becomes a more formal input into how building work in occupied premises is scoped.
Second, several of the proposed changes touch directly on what you assess in occupied premises: evacuation arrangements for disabled residents, specialised housing terminology, PV installations, car park fire resistance, and external wall systems. The buildings arriving in your caseload over the coming years will be designed to whichever version of ADB applies — knowing the direction of travel tells you what to expect.
The proposed implementation date for all the changes is 2 September 2029, aligning with the next scheduled ADB amendment booklet. The transition is long, but the direction is set now.
The changes that matter most to assessors
Of the ten sections in the consultation, six have direct or indirect relevance to assessment practice. Here's what each one is proposing and why it lands on your desk.
1. Existing buildings — alignment with the FRA
The consultation introduces new text in Section 0 of ADB clarifying how the guidance applies when building work is done on an existing building. The headline: dutyholders should consider the FRA when scoping the work, and where the FRA highlights safety levels that met standards at the time of construction but fall short of contemporary standards, improvements may be "proportionate" under the FSO regardless of whether the Building Regulations strictly require them.
For assessors, this is the most consequential change in the consultation. If adopted, it formalises the FRA's role as a planning input into building work — which means your assessment of an existing building isn't just informing the responsible person; it can shape what gets done when the building is altered.
2. Evacuation lifts in new residential buildings above 18m
ADB will require a minimum of two stairs and two evacuation lifts in all new residential buildings above 18m. Where a firefighting lift is already provided, it can have a dual function. The 18m threshold aligns with the higher-risk building definition under the Building Safety Act.
This doesn't change anything for existing buildings, but it changes what you'll see when you assess a new high-rise residential block built to the 2029 amendment. The evacuation strategy for these buildings will move from pure stay-put toward something that genuinely accommodates assisted evacuation. Worth understanding now so your assessments of these buildings in five years aren't catching you flat.
3. "Specialised housing" replaces "sheltered housing"
The term "sheltered housing" is being retired in favour of "specialised housing", split into two categories: with personal care (CQC-regulated) and without. This better reflects the range of buildings currently sitting under the single sheltered label — extra care, age-exclusive, enhanced sheltered, close care, and similar.
Alongside the terminology change, ADB will increase alarm coverage in specialised housing with care to category LD1, grade D1 inside the accommodation in line with BS 5839-6:2019.
For assessors, the practical effect is two-fold. The terminology becomes the new vocabulary for describing what you're looking at — and the enhanced alarm provisions in new builds set a higher baseline against which you'll be benchmarking existing specialised housing.
4. PV panels and modern roof construction
The consultation introduces new fire safety provisions for roofs incorporating photovoltaic installations: enhanced fire performance for products beneath and around the panels, restrictions on panel placement near roof openings, and conditional exemptions for certain flat roof configurations.
This sits alongside the ongoing professional conversation about energy technology hazards more broadly. For assessors, PV systems on existing buildings are already a question that needs to surface in PAS 79-1 Section 13 and Section 27 assessments — inspection regimes, isolation arrangements, and the firefighting implications of roof-mounted DC arrays. The ADB changes don't bind retrospectively, but they signal that the regulator is now treating PV as a genuine fire safety design issue rather than a peripheral one.
5. Open-sided car park fire resistance
Driven by lessons from the Liverpool Echo Arena and Luton Airport car park fires, ADB will increase the required fire resistance of new multistorey open-sided car parks: 30 minutes for 5–18m buildings (up from 15), and 60 minutes for buildings above 18m. Existing car parks remain governed by the FSO and your assessment process — but the new design baseline reflects what's now considered necessary for modern vehicles, including EVs.
For FRAs of existing car parks, the new figures are a useful benchmark when reasoning about risk-proportionate measures in older structures where the current fire resistance arrangements look thin against modern vehicle fire loads.
6. External walls, balconies and the laminated glass exemption
Section 10 of Volume 1 and Section 12 of Volume 2 — the external wall guidance — are being substantially redrafted. The most concrete proposed change is an exemption to the ban on combustible materials for laminated glass used as balcony balustrades of specified thickness and composition.
For assessors, the bigger point is the broader signal: external wall design remains the most actively contested area of post-Grenfell fire safety, and any assessment that engages with external wall construction continues to sit close to the boundary where general FRA work ends and PAS 9980 territory begins. The redrafted guidance will tighten that boundary further, and the case for advising responsible persons to commission specialist FRAEW input where wall systems are non-trivial will only get stronger.
What this means for your practice now
Several practical things follow.
Use the consultation to sharpen scope conversations with clients. Responsible persons commissioning building work on existing premises in the next three years are increasingly going to need their FRA to inform that scoping. Your authority in that conversation is enhanced by being able to point to the BSR's explicit position that the FRA is a relevant input — even before the new ADB text comes into force.
Brief yourself on evacuation lifts and specialised housing terminology now. Both are coming into the buildings you'll assess in the second half of this decade. There's no urgency in 2026, but waiting until 2029 is leaving it too late.
Watch the external wall workstream. The BSR's research on external wall classification is still ongoing. The consultation describes a redraft that is "not yet finished" — which means there's more to come. Continuing to keep clean lines between general FRA work and external wall appraisal work is good practice and good business.
Respond if it affects your work. The consultation is open until 1 July 2026. Most assessors won't engage with it. The ones who do will be cited in the response document and will shape the final wording. If something here matters to your practice, the FRA voice is currently underrepresented in the technical response community.
How FireCheckr fits in
Standards evolve faster than templates, and templates evolve faster than habits. Whichever version of ADB applies to a building, your job is to assess it against the current state of fire safety knowledge — and to document the reasoning clearly enough that it holds up under scrutiny.
FireCheckr's app is built on the latest standards so you can ensure your risk assessments are defensible and compliant. To see how our platform works in practice, book a demo at firecheckr.co.uk/book.
