What must the Responsible Person do for affected residents?
Where a resident agrees, the Responsible Person must:
The Regulations do not require Responsible Persons to carry out medical assessments or force participation.
Where can further guidance be found?
Statutory guidance and supporting materials for Responsible Persons are available on GOV.UK, including government-published guidance on residential evacuation planning and consent-based engagement with residents.
Are there additional duties for high-rise residential buildings?
Yes. Under the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, Responsible Persons for high-rise residential buildings (those that are 18 metres or more in height or seven storeys or more) must also:
These duties are separate from, and in addition to, the Residential Evacuation Plans Regulations.
What about data protection and consent?
All elements of the process are subject to the resident’s explicit consent.
Information must be handled in accordance with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, and the Regulations do not authorise processing of personal data that would contravene data protection legislation. Residents may withdraw consent at any time.
Is a building-level evacuation plan required?
Yes. Responsible Persons for buildings in scope must prepare and maintain a Building Emergency Evacuation Plan. This plan must:
How must the information shared with the Fire and Rescue Service be provided?
The Regulations require the information to be provided to the Fire and Rescue Authority.
It is for the Fire and Rescue Authority to determine whether this information should be provided digitally or in hard copy, and Responsible Persons should confirm the Authority’s preference before sharing information.
Where a building is already required to have a Secure Information Box under the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, the information must be kept there in hard copy.
Where a Secure Information Box is not already in place and the Fire and Rescue Authority requires hard copy information to be held on site, the Responsible Person must install and maintain a Secure Information Box for this purpose.
What information must be shared with the Fire and Rescue Service?
With the resident’s explicit consent, the Responsible Person must provide the Fire and Rescue Authority with the prescribed information, which includes:
No other personal information is required.
Which residents are covered by the Regulations?
The Regulations apply to residents for whom the domestic premises in the building is their only or principal residence and who may have difficulty evacuating independently due to physical mobility limitations, sensory impairments, cognitive conditions, or other disabilities.
Participation is voluntary and depends entirely on the resident’s consent.
Who is the Responsible Person?
The Responsible Person is the individual or organisation with control over the building or its common parts. This may include a building owner, managing agent, management company, or other person with legal control.
Responsible Persons already have duties under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. These Regulations introduce additional, specific duties.
Which buildings are in scope?
The Regulations apply to residential buildings in England that contain two or more domestic premises and meet one of the following criteria:
• Buildings that are 18 metres or more in height, or seven or more storeys
• Buildings that are over 11 metres in height and operate a simultaneous evacuation strategy is in place
Why have these Regulations been introduced?
The Regulations were introduced following recommendations made after the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 report. Their purpose is to ensure that residents who may not be able to self-evacuate are properly considered within residential fire risk management and evacuation planning arrangements, and that fire and rescue services have access to the prescribed information required by the Regulations to support operational response, subject to the resident’s consent.
What are the Residential Evacuation Plans Regulations?
The Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025 introduce new legal duties for Responsible Persons of in scope residential buildings in England.
The duties relate to planning for the evacuation of relevant residents whose ability to evacuate without assistance may be compromised, subject to the resident’s consent, in the event of a fire.
The Regulations come into force on 6 April 2026.
Can I join Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service even though I am an overseas national?
You must be eligible to work in the UK to apply and be considered for employment.
Please take note that Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service does not hold a UK Visa and Immigration (UKVI) Skilled Worker License sponsor and are unable to sponsor any individuals for Skilled Worker Sponsorship
Why replace an On-Call fire engine with a specialist vehicle?
Some areas are better suited to vehicles that match local risk. For example, Rural Firefighting Vehicles can reach off-road or remote areas more effectively, while Welfare Units support firefighters during long incidents. These vehicles require fewer crew and can therefore be made reliably available more often.
Will the Service be removing Fire Engines?
The data we collected and analysed as part of our 2025 – 2030 CRMP shows that we do not need to keep all 30 of our current fire engines. Our assessment indicates that a fleet of 23 type B Fire Engines (traditional fire engines), supported by our specialist vehicles (such as Rural Firefighting Vehicle, Water carrier, Boat) would continue to provide effective and resilient cover across Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes.
This aligns with feedback from our CRMP public consultation and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) inspection.
As a result, the proposal includes the removal or replacement of seven On-Call fire engines, which allow us to reinvest in strengthening the Service. However, no final decisions have been made. We are seeking your views before making any final recommendations.
Special appliance crewing and locations are also being reviewed as part of this work. These appliances, alongside the essential contribution of On-Call staff and stations play a key role in in maintaining our overall response and resilience.
Why is the Service focussing on On-Call in this way?
During the process of creating our 2025 -2030 Community Risk Management Programme (CRMP) staff and the public were consulted on ideas for improving the resilience and capacity of the Service.
The On-Call Improvement Programme is exploring this theme in line with the commitment:
Throughout the CRMP’s duration, we will assess the required number of On-Call pumps to align with our new response standard and address identified risks within the CRMP.
As a Service we recognise the contribution made by our On-Call staff working across Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes and the value they bring to our Service. However, we also must remain aware of the challenges On-Call provision faces nationally, particularly involving recruitment.
This programme is designed to maximise the contribution of our On-Call, while identifying how we can improve our On-Call provision alongside the challenges acknowledged by all Services.
What will happen to the stations if they no longer have fire engines?
If, following public consultation, the Fire Authority agrees to cease operational response from either or both stations, Great Missenden and Stokenchurch, any decisions about selling the buildings or using them for a different purpose would be made by the Fire Authority Executive Committee. The Service would follow the full scrutiny process to determine the best way to utilise the buildings in support of the Service and the communities we serve.
Is Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service (BFRS) doing this to save money?
No. The purpose of this programme is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of On-Call and to strengthen our overall operational response and resilience.
Any funding released through efficiencies in fire engine provision will be reinvested into the Service.
How will my feedback be used?
All responses will be analysed and summarised. The results will be shared with the Fire Authority alongside the evidence and impact assessments to help shape the final decision.
What will Operational Independence look like in practice, could you provide an example?
Any final proposal for a delegation of power from the Fire Authority to the Chief Fire Officer (CFO) would be clearly defined in any future recommendation.
A theoretical example of how this might work is if an On-Call station does not have sufficient staff to crew a traditional fire engine. In that situation, the CFO could temporarily move the fire engine elsewhere and replace it with a specialist vehicle that only requires two firefighters to crew. This ensures the station can still provide an operational response rather than having no cover at all.
During this temporary arrangement, the Service would continue to recruit at the station with the aim of restoring a full crew for a traditional fire engine in the future.
Why does the Chief Fire Officer need more operational independence?
Giving Chief Fire Officers more operational independence is not unique to Buckinghamshire, it is part of a national conversation about modernising the fire and rescue sector.
The government’s Fire Reform White Paper and His Majesty’s Inspectorate’s State of Fire reports have both highlighted that fire and rescue services should have clearer, quicker decision-making on operational matters. These national reports say that Chief Fire Officers should have more freedom to make evidence-based decisions about how staff, vehicles, and equipment are organised, while Fire Authorities continue to provide strong oversight, governance and accountability.
At the moment, some decisions in Buckinghamshire, such as where fire engines are based or how resources are best deployed, require approval from the Fire Authority. This can slow down changes that need to be made quickly in response to new risks, data or community needs.
The Fire Authority would still retain control of key decisions, such as budgets, strategy, and any station closures. Operational independence simply enables the Service to respond more efficiently and effectively to changing risks while maintaining strong democratic oversight.
Will I have to wait longer for a fire engine to respond to an incident in my area?
No. When we compare our proposal to a more realistic situation, where many On-Call fire engines are often not available, the modelling shows no reduction in response times.
The figure of “on average 8 seconds slower” only comes from comparing our proposal to a completely unrealistic situation where all 18 On-Call fire engines are fully crewed all of the time. We know this cannot happen with current staffing levels.
Right now, across the whole Service, we have about one On-Call fire engine during the day and two at night ready to respond. The seven On-Call fire engines included in our proposal were available less than 3% over the last year. This is why the “no On-Call available” model is is much closer to the situation we currently face, and against that model, the proposal does not increase response times.
Two stations, Great Missenden and Stokenchurch, have not had crews for more than five years, so the service in those areas will not change.
Overall, the model shows that, compared to how things work today, the proposal does not create longer waits, and in some areas could mean a fire engine arrives more quickly because the available engines are more reliably crewed.
Will this mean fewer firefighters?
No, we will not reduce the number of On-Call firefighters through these proposals. In fact, throughout the consultation period and beyond, we will be continuing to recruit On-Call firefighters.
If a decision is made to remove one or more On-Call fire engines, the Service will aim to redeploy all affected On-Call staff to other stations in a way that meets both individual needs and the needs of the Service.
What is the difference between On-Call and Wholetime firefighters?
Our crews work in two main ways:
Because of this ten-minute mobilisation time, the nearest Wholetime fire engine will often arrive first at an incident, even when an On-Call station is closer.
Where are your fire stations located?
We have 19 strategically placed stations across Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes. They are located at (listed in alphabetical order): Amersham, Aylesbury, Beaconsfield, Brill, Broughton, Buckingham, Chesham, Gerrards Cross, Great Missenden, Haddenham, High Wycombe, Marlow, Newport Pagnell, Olney, Princes Risborough, Stokenchurch, Waddesdon, West Ashland and Winslow. Details about our fire stations and their locations can be found on our ‘About Us‘ page.