Public Health Act 1936

59 Exits, entrances, and &c, in the case of certain public, and other, buildings.

(1) Where plans of a building or of an extension of a building are, in accordance with building byelaws, deposited with a local authority, and the building or, as the case may be, the building as extended will be a building to which this section applies, the authority shall reject the plans unless they show that the building, or, as the case may be, the building as extended, will be provided with such means of ingress and egress and passages or gangways as the authority deem satisfactory, regard being had by them to the purposes for which the building is intended to be, or is, used and the number of persons likely to resort thereto at any one time :

Provided that any question arising under this subsection between a local authority and the person by whom, or on whose behalf, plans are deposited as to whether the means of ingress or egress or passages or gangways already existing, or proposed to be provided, ought to be accepted by the authority as satisfactory may on the application of that person be determined by a court of summary jurisdiction.

(2) If it appears to a local authority that any building to which this section applies is not provided with such means of ingress and egress and passages or gangways as the authority deem satisfactory, regard being had by them to the purposes for which the building is used and the number of persons likely to resort thereto at any one time, the authority shall by notice require the owner of the building to execute such work and make such provision in regard to the matters aforesaid as may be necessary.

The provisions of Part XII of this Act with respect to appeals against, and the enforcement of, notices requiring the execution of works shall apply in relation to any notice given under this subsection.

(3) If the authority are satisfied that the safety of the public requires that immediate action should be taken in the case of any building as respects which they have given a notice under the last preceding subsection, they may apply to a court of summary jurisdiction and the court may make such temporary order as it thinks fit for the closing of the building to, or for restricting its use by, the public.

(4) The person having the control of any building to which this section applies shall take steps to secure that the means of ingress and egress and the passages and gangways shall, while persons are assembled in the building, be kept free and unobstructed, except in so far as the local authority may otherwise approve, and, if he fails to do so, shall be liable to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds.

(5) This section applies to—

(a) any theatre, and any hall or other building which is used as a place of public resort;

(b) any restaurant, shop, store or warehouse to which members of the public are admitted and in which more than twenty persons are employed;

(c) any club required to be registered under the provisions of the [10 Edw. 7 & 1 Geo. 5. c. 24.] Licensing (Consolidation) Act, 1910;

(d) any school not exempted from the operation of building byelaws; and

(e) subject as hereinafter provided, any church, chapel or other place of public worship :

Provided that this section does not apply to a private house to which members of the public are admitted occasionally or exceptionally, or to a building which was used as a church, chapel or other place of public worship immediately before the date when section thirty-six of the Public Health Acts Amendment Act, 1890, or a corresponding provision in a local Act, came into operation in the district or contributory place, or which in a district or contributory place where neither that section, nor any such corresponding provision, ever came into operation was so used immediately before the commencement of this Act.