The Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations 1997

PART I PRELIMINARY

Citation, commencement and extent

1.—(1) These Regulations may be cited as the Fire Precautions (Workplace) Regulations 1997 and shall come into force on 1st December 1997.

(2) These Regulations extend to Great Britain.

Interpretation

2.—(1) In these Regulations, unless the context otherwise requires—

“the 1971 Act” means the Fire Precautions Act 1971;

“the 1974 Act” means the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974(1);

“the 1992 Management Regulations” means the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1992(2);

“domestic premises” has the meaning given to it by section 53(1) of the 1974 Act;

“employee” means a person who is or is treated as an employee for the purposes of the 1992 Management Regulations;

“employer” means a person who is or is treated as an employer for the purposes of the 1992 Management Regulations;

“enforcement notice” has the meaning given to it by regulation 13(1);

“excepted workplace” has the meaning given to it by regulation 3(5);

“fire authority” means an authority discharging the functions of fire authority under the Fire Services Act 1947(3);

“premises” includes any place and, in particular, includes—

(a)

any vehicle, vessel, aircraft or hovercraft;

(b)

any installation on land (including the foreshore and other land intermittently covered by water), any offshore installation, and any other installation (whether floating, or resting on the seabed or the subsoil thereof, or resting on other land covered with water or the subsoil thereof), and

(c)

any tent or movable structure;

“public road” means (in England and Wales) a highway maintainable at public expense within the meaning of section 329 of the Highways Act 1980(4) and (in Scotland) a public road within the meaning of section 151 of the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984(5);

“workplace” means any premises or part of premises, not being domestic premises, used for the purposes of an employer’s undertaking and which are made available to an employee of the employer as a place of work and includes—

(a)

any place within the premises to which such employee has access while at work; and

(b)

any room, lobby, corridor, staircase, road or other place—

(i)

used as a means of access to or egress from that place of work; or

(ii)

where facilities are provided for use in connection with that place of work;

other than a public road; and

“the workplace fire precautions legislation” has the meaning given to it by regulation 9(2).

(2) Unless the context otherwise requires, any reference in these Regulations to—

(a) a numbered regulation is a reference to the regulation in these Regulations so numbered;

(b) a numbered paragraph is a reference to the paragraph in the regulation in which the reference appears; and

(c) a numbered sub-paragraph is a reference to the sub-paragraph in the paragraph in which the reference appears.

(1)

1974 c. 37.

(2)

S.I. 1992/2051, as amended by the Health and Safety (Young Persons) Regulations 1997 (S.I. 1997/135); there are other amendments not relevant to these Regulations.

(3)

1947 c. 41.

(4)

1980 c. 66.

(5)

1984 c. 54.