Hi all, I have a bit of a conundrum, one the locations our company leases has two final exit doors, both of which open against the direction of travel. The doors are fitted with electronic push button release mechanisms. The lease states that we are responsible for the maintenance of the premise. The lease has been running for decades. I know the RRFSO states that final exit doors must open in the direction of travel (RRFSO S14(2)(d)), however the building is grade 2 listed and the doors have been on for a very long time. The question is, does SFARP apply to this kind of scenario? Or is the legislation absolute?

I have come across this myself when I worked for my local council 30 years ago as a printer. We used an old building that had typical doors (opening inwards), but fire safety overrode any previous listing and so the doors were altered to open outwards. Fortunately, 'common sense' prevailed and peoples lives were considered more important than a building.

I agree with Stuff4blokes that the key phrase here is 'where necessary'. Guidance will talk about needing outward opening doors where 60 persons may use it and where there is escape from high risk areas etc etc. But it's worth asking yourself, what is the rationale behind the outward opening rule as it can be possible to apply a flexible approach to this issue. For instance, if you look at the 60 person guidance, this clearly relates to the risk of that a crush could develop at the door. But is that always the case? It must surely depend on the near simultaneous arrival of escapees and the required speed of evacuation. Consider an open plan room or space containing 60+ persons - a canteen in a plastics factory. Perhaps a crush is likely as everyone could arrive at the door(s) fairly simultaneously. Compare that with a 3 storey single staircase office building. Fire development will be slower and the flow of persons arriving at the door will be 'controlled' by the restriction of the staircase. So an assessment of the MOE may help. Points to consider are pinch points, the space behind the door in question (to enable people to move out of the way) and the likelihood of a rapidly developing fire. You can go all the way and use computer modelling etc, or use a simple pragmatic approach. For instance, one job I worked on was a grade 1 office building in London's west end which had been refurbished internally. There were (from memory) 120+ persons inside. Due to the listed status it was near impossible to turn this door around, so an agreement was reached for the emergency plan to be written which would ensure the security/receptionists (located adjacent to the front door) would open the doors + secure them in the open position, as soon as the fire alarm was operated. This strategy would be supported by staff training & 3 x fire drills annually. The fire service were happy with this approach