For years, discussions about fire safety in high-rise residential buildings have focused on the building itself: compartmentation, fire doors, alarms, smoke control, and the routes people can use to escape.
Another question is now receiving much more attention. What happens when a resident cannot use those routes without assistance?
Changes introduced in 2026 have made that issue firmly part of the responsibilities of those managing high-rise residential buildings in England.
The Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025 came into force on 6 April 2026. They introduced new duties intended to improve arrangements for residents who may have difficulty evacuating independently because of mobility, sensory or cognitive impairments.
The regulations do not mean that every high-rise building must install an evacuation lift. They do mean that evacuation can no longer be considered only in terms of the average resident who can walk down several flights of stairs without assistance.
That distinction matters.
An Evacuation Strategy Has to Consider the People in the Building
The new Residential Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans, usually referred to as Residential PEEPs, apply to specified residential buildings in England.
This includes high-rise residential buildings containing two or more domestic premises that are at least 18 metres high or have at least seven storeys. They also apply to multi-residential buildings over 11 metres where a simultaneous evacuation strategy is in place.
For residents who would have difficulty evacuating without assistance, the process can include a person-centred fire risk assessment, consideration of reasonable and proportionate measures to reduce their risk and a written statement setting out what they should do in a fire.
There is also now a requirement for buildings within scope to have a building emergency evacuation plan.
This changes the conversation because an evacuation plan has to work with the actual building and its occupants.
Saying that residents should leave via the stairs is straightforward. It becomes considerably more complicated when somebody uses a wheelchair, cannot manage multiple flights of stairs or has another impairment affecting their ability to evacuate independently.
You need to understand those circumstances before an emergency occurs.
An Ordinary Passenger Lift Should Not Be Assumed to Be an Escape Route
People use lifts every day, so it is understandable that a resident might assume the lift they normally use could also take them to ground level during an emergency.
That should never simply be assumed.
A conventional passenger lift is designed primarily for normal movement through a building. Its power supply, controls, fire protection, communications, landing arrangements and behaviour during a fire may not provide what is required for evacuation use.
This is one of the reasons instructions commonly tell occupants not to use ordinary lifts during a fire unless the building’s specific fire strategy provides otherwise.
An evacuation lift is different. It is intended to form part of a planned means of evacuation and needs to be considered alongside the building’s fire strategy, protected circulation and management arrangements.
Even then, installing an evacuation lift does not create an evacuation strategy on its own.
How people reach it, where they wait, who controls or manages its use, how it operates during an emergency, and what happens if circumstances prevent its use all need consideration.
The lift is one part of a larger system.
Building Design and Management Have to Work Together
One difficulty with evacuation planning is that physical building measures and management procedures are sometimes considered separately.
In practice, they depend on each other.
An evacuation lift may be designed into a protected arrangement, but somebody still needs to know how it is intended to operate. Residents need appropriate information. Those responsible for the building need clear procedures. The building’s wider fire strategy has to account for the lift.
The Government’s Residential PEEPs guidance reflects this. Where a building has an evacuation lift, its building emergency evacuation plan can set out how that lift is intended to be used during a fire.
That sounds obvious, but it addresses an important point. Having equipment available is not the same as having a workable plan for using it.
The same applies to refuges, evacuation chairs and other measures. Their suitability depends on the building, residents’ individual circumstances, and the overall evacuation strategy.
High-Rise Design Is Already Changing
The regulatory picture around tall residential buildings has continued to develop during 2026.
Changes to Approved Document B that took effect on 30 September introduced a recommendation for more than one common stair in blocks of flats with a storey 18 metres or more above ground level, subject to the relevant transitional arrangements.
The amended guidance also includes building design provisions intended to support evacuation lifts where they are provided. This includes the concept of an evacuation shaft incorporating a protected stairway, an evacuation lift, and an evacuation lift lobby.
That does not mean the current Approved Document B requires an evacuation lift in every residential building above 18 metres.
A further proposal considered during 2026 would go further by recommending evacuation lifts in new residential buildings above 18 metres. At the time of writing, that proposal has been through consultation and should not be confused with the requirements and guidance already in force.
For developers, designers and building managers, keeping those distinctions clear is important. Fire safety requirements are changing, but proposed changes and current requirements are not interchangeable.
Existing Buildings Present a Different Problem
Designing appropriate evacuation arrangements into a new building is one thing. Working with an occupied building constructed decades ago can be considerably more difficult.
Space may be restricted. The building may have a single staircase. Existing lift shafts may not be suitable for a different type of lift operation. Electrical systems, fire protection measures and internal layouts may all constrain what can realistically be altered.
That does not mean nothing can be done.
It means the starting point should be understanding the existing building and its fire strategy rather than assuming that a particular piece of equipment will solve the problem.
Retrofitting an evacuation lift, for example, requires far more consideration than changing an existing passenger lift’s controls and giving it a new designation. The surrounding construction, power arrangements, lift operation, protected approach and wider fire strategy all matter.
Where substantial refurbishment is already planned, there may be more opportunity to consider these issues alongside other building work. Where alterations are limited, the options may be different.
Either way, the solution must be based on a competent assessment of the particular building.
Evacuation Is Not Only a Mobility Issue
Discussions about emergency evacuation often concentrate on wheelchair users, but the group of people who may have difficulty evacuating independently is much wider.
Someone may be able to walk normally over short distances but be unable to descend ten or fifteen storeys by staircase.
Others may have sight or hearing impairments that affect how they receive information or navigate an emergency. Cognitive conditions can create different difficulties again.
Age, temporary injuries and changing health can also affect how someone responds to an evacuation.
This is why a person-centred approach matters. Two residents on the same floor may need very different arrangements, even if they use the same escape routes.
Building-wide planning establishes the overall strategy. Individual assessment identifies where that strategy may need additional measures to work for a particular resident.
Neither works particularly well without the other.
A Lift Is Only Useful if the Plan Around It Works
As evacuation lifts receive greater attention, there is a risk they become seen as the simple answer to accessible evacuation from tall buildings.
They are an important part of the discussion, but they should not be treated that way.
A properly specified evacuation lift can provide a means of vertical evacuation for people who may be unable to use stairs. Its effectiveness still depends on the surrounding building and the arrangements governing its use.
The route to the lift needs to remain appropriate. Waiting areas and protected spaces need to form part of the design. Power and control arrangements need to support the intended operation. Management procedures have to be understood rather than sitting unread in a fire safety document.
There also needs to be clarity about what happens if the lift cannot be used.
These are matters for the relevant competent professionals and the building’s fire strategy, not decisions that should be made by selecting lift equipment in isolation.
The Important Change Is Happening Before an Emergency
Perhaps the most significant change in 2026 is not a particular lift specification or building regulation.
It is the expectation that evacuation needs of individual residents are considered before a fire.
For building owners and managers within the scope of the Residential PEEPs regulations, this is now reflected in specific legal duties. For designers working on new high-rise residential buildings, changes to Approved Document B and the continuing review of fire safety guidance show that accessible vertical evacuation is receiving much greater attention at design stage as well.
The practical question is no longer simply how people normally move around a building.
It is how they would get out when the normal way of using that building is no longer available.
For some residents, a protected staircase may provide the answer. For others, the strategy may require additional assistance or building measures. In appropriate buildings, evacuation lifts can form part of that solution.
What matters is that the question has been answered before anybody needs to rely on the plan.