The Mayor of London's Draft London Plan, which sets out a wide-ranging agenda to shape how the city develops through to 2050, includes specific fire safety requirements, including the use of evacuation lifts.

The plan is structured around six core themes, including making the most appropriate use of land, delivering homes and neighbourhoods, supporting economic growth, creating a greener, more resilient city and developing place-based approaches across the capital.

Among the proposals for an 'inclusive built environment' are specific fire safety requirements 'in all new buildings of any height' - new buildings in this case also including existing buildings undergoing substantial redevelopment requiring planning permission.

The plan includes: “London is home to more than a million people with disabilities, and it contains around 70 per cent of the UK’s high-rise buildings and four times the national average of high-rise homes.'

'Where lifts are proposed in a new building to enable level access to different floors of the building, the policy requires that an evacuation lift is provided to allow people who require level access to evacuate from the building safely and with dignity when above or below the entrance level.

'The fire evacuation lift(s), and associated provisions are expected to be appropriately designed, constructed, and include the necessary controls suitable for the purposes intended.'

The plan confirms that the requirement for evacuation lifts "applies to a core in which the development proposal includes a lift. Where a core is proposed with only a stairway and no lift, no evacuation lift is required to meet this policy requirement.”

Additionally, major developments of any height providing residential accommodation, and/or uses included within purpose groups 1 and 2 buildings of Approved Document B, should meet the highest standards of fire safety by being designed to:

1. reduce the risk to life and the risk of serious injury in the event of a fire
2. minimise the risk of fire spread and not incorporate combustible materials in their external wall
3. a competent fire engineer should confirm in the design and access statement that the proposed development meets the policy requirements.

The draft emphasises that the responsibility for demonstrating compliance is on applicants and their appointed specialists: 'Planning officers are not experts in fire safety. Therefore, the onus is on the applicant for the development, through the use of fire safety professionals, to demonstrate compliance [with the policy requirements].'

The plan sets out the rationale for adopting a more precautionary approach to fire safety in London than that provided through building regulations alone: 'While the matter of fire safety compliance is covered by Part B of the Building Regulations, the Mayor currently has some concerns around the scope and standards of these Regulations in particular with regard to fire safety in residential accommodation.

'London’s uniquely dense built environment, which includes the majority of the country’s tall buildings, makes it particularly susceptible to fire safety risks.'

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