Hi, need some input to this from anyone who is in the retail industry or has responsibility for public buildings. in line with the Fire Safety Reform order regarding creating Personal Emergency Evacuation plans for Disabled persons. How does this impact on the general public going in a lift up to the second floor of a shop for example? or any public buildings? is there a plan in place to aid these people out of the building in the event of a fire if the alarm goes off and they are stuck on the upper floor as i guess that not all lifts are Fire Lifts persay or is it a requirement that they are for these types of buildings. Sorry if its along winded question.

ultimately it is down to the store to make arrangements to assist these people out of the store so this might mean using an evac chair, but they will need to have a procedure in place. As chris has said it could be possible to hold that person in a refuge area until whether a fire has in fact started and where. But ultimately if the store needs evacuating so does anyone in a wheelchair. You can't expect the fire service to rescue them it's down to the store also virtually no lifts in the customer area of a store (posh glass ones) will be fire lifts it might be a different story in the staff areas. Phil

If my memory serves correct there may be already or are going to be lifts out in the market that can be used in the event of fire - might be worth a look into, though significant £££'s would be involved if it was to replace a lift already in use. Definately worth a look for any new build projects coming up. I look after >300 retail sites and not one has an evac chair. Many sites have been subject to fire officer visits and only one has mentioned provision of the chair - though came round to my way of thinking, see below. If you have multi site responsibility these chairs can bring their own problem. For me toarrange a chair in all my sites the bill would run in to £10s of thousands, not an easy pill for the board to swallow. Also the potential user should be trainined in their use which brings it own problems in terms of logistics. There is a safe way to evacuate people in wheelchairs which kind of covers off one area, though training is required again. The findings of your risk assessment(s) will be crucial here. Is the risk of ignition high? If so you will probably need to do more than i would in terms of evac help in my low fire risk organisation (on the retail side at least). We have refuges in most buildings where people can be "left" until they can be safely evacuated, again this depends on when will they be evac'd. Will it be by staff when they can regroup and safely get the evacuee out or will it be the fire brigade as staff can't do it? How far away is the fire station and what is the response time - ie is it well within the min FR30 of the refuge? In short, my advice is thorough risk assessment on all aspects, including capabilities of staff to aid evacuation in the event of fire. sorry for the long ramble!

Carol – I manage safety arrangements in retail premises and each store has a detailed evacuation plan – where required we use evac chairs – we have an in house team of staff who are trained to train in their use. AnthonyH – interesting that you don’t get challenged by Inspecting Officers – I have over 200 store with some 10 million sq feet - I was all the time a few years ago! Not now with the current arrangements.