A fire inspector can serve a prohibition notice on your shop the same day they find your fire risk assessment missing, out of date, or too generic to reflect what is actually on the shop floor. That notice can shut your doors immediately, not next week, and it stays in place until you have fixed the problem to the inspector's satisfaction. Retailers also discover, usually after a claim, that their insurer will refuse to pay out on a fire loss if there was no suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment in place, because most commercial policies now require one as a condition of cover.
Who counts as the responsible person in a shop
Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the "responsible person" for a shop is normally the employer, meaning whoever runs the business trading from the premises. If you lease the unit, your landlord usually retains responsibility for shared structural elements and common parts, such as a shared stairwell in a parade of shops, while you are responsible for the shop itself. Read your lease carefully, because vague wording here is exactly what leads to disputes after an incident, when it is too late to sort out who should have done what.
If you run more than one shop, each site needs its own fire risk assessment. A single assessment written for your flagship store, then quietly reused for three smaller branches, will not hold up to scrutiny, because layout, storage arrangements, staff numbers and escape routes differ from site to site. Our overview of who counts as the responsible person under UK fire safety law covers this in more depth if you are unsure where your obligations start and stop.
What a shop assessment needs to cover that a generic template misses
Retail premises have a specific risk profile that a generic office template will not capture. Stockrooms are the classic weak point: cardboard, packaging and stacked stock create a substantial fuel load, and if a stockroom sits next to the only escape route from the shop floor, that is a serious finding, not a minor observation. Your assessment should record how stock is stored, how far it is kept from heat sources and electrical equipment, and whether fire doors between the stockroom and the shop floor are fitted, and whether they are actually being kept shut.
Till areas and back offices often have trailing cables, phone chargers and portable heaters that were never part of the original electrical design. Seasonal stock, particularly around Christmas, can also block aisles and emergency exits if nobody is specifically checking for it. A proper shop fire risk assessment walks the premises during a normal trading day, not after closing when the floor has been tidied and the risks are no longer visible.
Electrical equipment deserves its own line of enquiry. Point of sale terminals, card machines, security tagging equipment and decorative display lighting all get added to a shop over time, often without anyone reviewing the circuit they are plugged into. Portable appliance testing is not a legal requirement in itself, but it is one of the most straightforward ways to demonstrate you are managing electrical fire risk, and an assessor will expect to see some system for checking equipment rather than an assumption that it is fine because it still switches on.
Means of escape and travel distances on the shop floor
The layout of a shop changes constantly as displays are refreshed and stock rotates, and that is precisely why escape routes need to be checked as part of routine housekeeping, not just at the annual review. Travel distance, the maximum distance a customer or member of staff should have to walk to reach a place of safety, depends on the layout and the fire risk of the premises, and a shop with a single escape route will have a shorter acceptable distance than one with two or more routes available in different directions. If a refit has narrowed an aisle or moved a display rail across what used to be a clear route to a fire exit, that changes the picture and needs to be reflected in the assessment.
Final exit doors must never be locked shut during trading hours in a way that stops people getting out, even if that creates a security headache around shoplifting. Fire exits secured with a code pad, a chain, or furniture stacked in front of them because the stockroom is full are among the most common findings that lead directly to a prohibition notice, because they turn a manageable fire into a trapped one.
Customers and staff need different evacuation planning
You cannot write a personal emergency evacuation plan, a PEEP, for every customer who walks through the door, because you have no way of knowing in advance who will be in the shop when an alarm sounds. What you can and must do is design a general evacuation strategy that accounts for the fact that some of the people in your shop on any given day will have mobility issues, sensory impairments, or young children with them, and make sure staff are trained to assist rather than assume someone else will.
PEEPs remain the right tool for your own staff. Any employee with a disability or a condition that could affect their ability to evacuate quickly should have a personal plan agreed with them directly, whether that means a buddy system, a refuge point, or specific equipment such as an evacuation chair on an upper floor. Staff also need to know their role during a fire alarm: who checks the toilets and fitting rooms, who directs customers to the nearest safe exit, and who is responsible for calling the fire service if it has not already been done.
Extinguishers, signage and emergency lighting
Fire extinguisher provision should match the risks you actually have, not a standard pack ordered because it seemed easiest. A shop with a small kitchen or hot food counter needs different extinguisher types nearby than a shop selling only dry goods, and extinguishers need to be serviced annually in line with BS 5306 with records kept of each service. Our guide on fire extinguisher requirements for UK businesses covers types, placement and servicing in detail.
Fire exit signage needs to be visible from anywhere on the shop floor, including from behind till points and display units that get moved around during refits. If your shop trades after dark, or has areas without natural light such as fitting rooms or a basement sales floor, emergency lighting to BS 5266 is very likely required so that escape routes remain visible if the power fails. Test it regularly and record the results, because a fitting that has never worked since installation is worse than having none at all: it gives false confidence to anyone who has not checked it.
Put it in writing, and keep it current
Since 1 October 2023, section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 has removed the old exemption that allowed businesses with fewer than five employees to skip a written fire risk assessment. Every responsible person now has to record the assessment and the fire safety arrangements in writing, regardless of how small the shop is or how few staff you employ. Our piece on the Building Safety Act 2022 written fire risk assessment requirement explains what "suitable and sufficient" actually means in practice.
A shop fire risk assessment is not a one-off exercise. Review it whenever you change the layout, add a new stockroom, install new equipment such as a hot food counter, or after any near miss, and review it as a matter of routine at least once a year even if nothing obvious has changed. Councils, insurers and fire inspectors all expect to see a review date on the document, and an assessment that has clearly not been looked at since it was first written is treated the same way as having no assessment at all.
Next steps
Do not wait for an inspector's visit or an insurance renewal to find out your fire risk assessment does not stand up. FRASafe's small business fire risk assessment walks you through every area the RRO 2005 requires, completed online in 30 to 45 minutes for £45, built around the way retail premises actually operate rather than a generic office checklist. Start your small business fire risk assessment today and get a written record in place before anyone asks to see one.