cover it in your fire risk assessment - add an annex to it - explaining the situation

Thanks both, I was starting to lean towards that idea.

That's fine chas but an FSO will spot the three unevenly spaced hinges, guauge the thickness of the door, whip out a make-up mirror, scan the top of the door, spot the label and then proceed to tell you it's a fire door! (not to mention the substantial door jamb, the rebate for the seal or the colour coded stud)

That may well be the aim of the RRO, but that is not how it's being Policed. The free, open risk based approach as envisaged by the politicians needed a change in attitude and extra training for fire service inspecting Officers (IO). This (in many cases) did not happen. I was there during the change and had to find my own training (often free seminars by private companies) backed up by self study in my own time to augment the pathetic training provided by my former employers New IOs were thrown a book of guides and mentored by dinosaurs from the prescriptive fire precautions act era. The result is that the guides have been interpreted as the minimum standard and often no flexibility is possible. The squeeze on fire service budgets will make things worse. I am being a little hard on my former colleagues as many are very capable. But some are bordering on useless and carry out audits with their guides held to their chests like a child and it's comfort blanket. Even more useless can be their managers. In my experience I had many who had no fire safety experience and were promoted into post, only to be guided by... yes you've guessed it.... the old dinosaurs from the FPA era. S/Smurf. Just record your findings, remove the fire door signs and keep your fingers crossed that an IO as lovely as me turns up nest time!!

@ Chris, I include fire strategy drawings with all of my FRA's now but won't draw in fire compartmentalisation (how many points is that worth in Scrabble*?) unless I can back it up. *Other spelling games are available

Messy, While I agree entirely with your analysis of how fire officers deal with the FSO, we've found that you can win an argument with them, provided you quote chapter and verse from the order and the guidance. Most recently we had a fire officer trying to insist that we had to open doors to check if there was a fire behind them; we asked her if fire crew would do that without wearing BA and PPE, she said no, so we said our (unprotected) care workers wouldn't either. She didn't like it, but has had to concede the point, John

John- Nicely done mate. As A Kurdziel says, it really is worth standing up to poor decisions.

I think it has been pretty much covered but would boil down to ensuring the doors are not identified as fire doors on the fire risk assessments and any floor plans i.e. fire or general emergency/evacuation plans. Ensure it is covered and justified within the fire risk assessment as well and then make whoever looks after the maintenance aware of this i.e. if a door is damaged and ever replaced there is no need to replace with a fire door.