Introduction to Fire Safety Management

3.3
Joint occupation of premises
Where two or more responsible persons and/or employers 
share or have duties in respect of a workplace whether 
or not it is a permanent or temporary arrangement, each 
party has absolute legal duties to:
➤
Cooperate with all other responsible persons and/or 
employers in order that they may all secure adequate 
fi re precautionary measures for the premises
➤
Take all reasonable steps to coordinate the general 
fi re precautions for the premises
➤
Inform all the other responsible persons and/or 
employers of the risks to safety arising from their 
work activities
➤
Where two or more responsible persons share the 
premises and the potential for an explosive atmos-
phere may occur it is the responsibility for the per-
son who has overall charge of the premises to 
coordinate the risk controls to manage any potential 
explosive atmospheres.
These duties extend to the self-employed, which means 
that employers have a duty to cooperate, coordinate and 
inform self-employed persons as well as other employers 
sharing the workplace. In addition, of course, the self-
employed have identical duties to cooperate, coordinate 
Figure 3.5
Common circulation areas are the responsi-
bility of those in control of the premises
Figure 3.6
Light industrial units jointly occupied

---

Organising for safety
45
and inform employers and other self-employed persons 
with whom they share a workplace.
In order to ensure that all the fi re risk control measures 
are taken for the whole workplace it is absolutely essential 
for people sharing a workplace to work together. For 
example, they will all need to conduct a fi re risk assess-
ment (see Chapter 5). It will only be possible to ensure the 
assessment is suitable and suffi cient and the resultant 
control measures are effective if the premises as a whole 
are being considered.