The pub is a shop, a kitchen, a chemical store and sometimes a home, stacked on top of each other. The fire risk assessment has to cover all four, and the accommodation decides whether it is a three-yearly job or an annual one. The cellar gas is the risk nobody outside the trade thinks about and the one that kills. Get the assessment right, keep the two gas services on the right registrations, and buy the fire services as one annual visit, not three contracts.
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Compliance for Pubs & bars
Compliance for Pubs & Bars — What You Actually Need
You have the public in numbers, often late, sometimes drunk, with a kitchen, a cellar full of pressurised gas, and frequently staff or family living upstairs. Pubs pull in more compliance than most premises their size. Here is what applies, in order, and what the licensing authority and the fire service will look at.
Your risk profile
High. Public occupancy at night, alcohol, cooking, cellar gases and sleeping accommodation above the bar combine to make pubs a fire-authority priority. Licensing conditions often duplicate the fire law and add capacity limits. The compliance is heavier than a shop and lighter than a hotel, and the sleeping risk upstairs decides which way it leans.
What applies to you
In the order it matters. Each links to a plain-English guide.
Required by lawYou must do this. Not doing it is an offence.
Required if…Required in some situations, not others. Depends on your premises and how you use them.
Good practiceNot written into law, but it is the recognised way to show you have met a legal duty.
Insurers, landlords or clients ask for itNot a legal requirement. A contractual one. Check the wording of what is actually being asked.
Optional, often oversoldNobody is making you buy this. Suppliers will still try.
Fire Risk AssessmentRequired by law
Required, recorded in full, and a registered-assessor job: public occupancy, escape routes from function rooms and cellars, and especially any accommodation above, which brings sleeping risk and an annual professional review. The licensing authority will ask for it.
Gas SafetyRequired by law
The kitchen: annual service by an engineer registered for commercial catering, with the ventilation interlock in place. The cellar: CO2 and mixed-gas cylinders, which need a cellar gas monitor and staff trained in cylinder handling. Two different registrations, two different risks.
Health & Safety Risk AssessmentRequired by law
Cellar work (manual handling of casks and kegs, drops, CO2), violence and aggression at closing time, glass, slips, late-night lone working, and the kitchen. Record it; you will have more than five staff.
Fire Alarm SystemsRequired by law
Almost always an installed system, L2 or L1 where there is accommodation above, with visual alarms in noisy areas. Category from the FRA. Weekly test by you, six-monthly service.
Emergency LightingRequired by law
Required throughout: evening trade, cellars, function rooms, toilets and any stairs to accommodation. Monthly test by you, annual duration test.
Fire ExtinguishersRequired by law
Per the FRA: water or foam and CO2 in the bar areas, wet chemical and blanket in the kitchen, CO2 in the cellar. Annual service.
Electrical (EICR)Good practice
Five-yearly. Cellar cooling, kitchen equipment, sound and lighting rigs, and outdoor sockets all take a hammering. Get the price per circuit.
PAT TestingGood practice
Kitchen equipment, glass washers, heated cabinets and hand-held cleaning kit annually; the rest on the two-year cycle. Beer garden heaters and outdoor sockets deserve attention.
Legionella Risk AssessmentRequired by law
Beer-line and glass-washer systems are not the risk; showers in the accommodation and any stored hot water are. Medium tier if there is accommodation, simple otherwise.
Workplace Safety TrainingRequired by law
Fire training and marshals, first aid, cellar safety and CO2 awareness, food hygiene Level 2 for anyone in the kitchen, and licensing-related training (personal licence holder, age verification) which is licensing law rather than safety law.
Asbestos ManagementRequired if…
Old pubs are old buildings. Pre-2000: management survey, register, and the register shown before any cellar or kitchen work.
Common questions
Does the licensing authority check fire safety?
The premises licence usually carries conditions on capacity, escape routes and fire precautions, and the fire authority is a responsible authority consulted on the licence. In practice the fire risk assessment satisfies both. Keep it current and keep the capacity figure in it consistent with the one on the licence.
What is the cellar gas risk?
Carbon dioxide and mixed-gas cylinders for dispense can leak into an enclosed cellar and displace oxygen; deaths have happened. You need a fixed CO2 monitor with an alarm outside the cellar door, staff trained in cylinder changing and what the alarm means, and a rule that nobody enters an alarmed cellar. Your gas supplier can usually advise; the monitor is £300 to £800.
We live above the pub. Does that change anything?
It changes the fire risk category substantially. Accommodation above a licensed premises is sleeping risk above a high fire-load occupancy, which means a professional fire risk assessment every year, detection in the accommodation linked to the pub system, and a protected escape route from upstairs that does not pass through the bar. Many pubs fail on the last point.
What should this cost?
Higher than a shop, and the accommodation decides how much higher. The recurring lines are the two gas services (kitchen and cellar), the alarm and lighting services, extinguisher service, PAT of the kitchen, and first-aid and fire training. The annual professional fire risk assessment applies if anyone sleeps upstairs. Where pubs get oversold: bundled brewery-tied compliance contracts on long terms, and separate suppliers for every fire service when one competent company can do alarm, lighting and extinguishers on one visit, priced separately.
Not sure how this applies to your premises?
Tell The Guide about your business and it will help you work out what you actually need — in plain English or full technical detail, your choice.
Review my risk →General information to help you understand your obligations and judge your own risk. Not legal advice.