FireAccord delivers genuine Fire & Rescue Service alignment for battery energy storage projects — the kind that discharges planning conditions, satisfies Local Planning Authorities, and protects multi-million pound project timelines.
Battery energy storage projects are large, complex, and capital-intensive. A single project can represent hundreds of millions of pounds in investment, grid connection commitments, and contracted revenue.
Yet the most common cause of planning delay has nothing to do with grid capacity, land rights, or environmental impact. It's fire safety — specifically, Fire & Rescue Services raising objections to documentation that fails to meet their operational expectations.
The NFCC v2 guidance published in December 2025 significantly raised the technical floor for compliant Battery Safety Management Plans. The Battery Energy Storage Systems (Fire Safety) Bill progressing through Parliament may make FRS a statutory consultee. The bar is rising, not falling.
Developers who treat fire safety documentation as a box-ticking exercise are increasingly finding that it isn't.
The return on specialist fire safety consultancy is not measured in document fees — it's measured in the planning delays it prevents, the conditions it discharges, and the project timelines it protects.
Fire safety conditions discharged, not deferred. Documentation produced to a standard that Local Planning Authorities and Fire & Rescue Services can endorse without reservation — removing the principal non-technical barrier to consent.
Engagement at design stage — not after engineering is finalised — means fire safety is developed in parallel with the project rather than as a late-stage remediation. Months of potential delay avoided before the submission is ever made.
Not minimum compliance — active alignment. FireAccord manages the FRS relationship throughout: pre-application engagement, consultation responses, and the direct liaison that produces documentation Fire Services will stand behind in front of a planning committee.
A 500MW BESS project carries capital value measured in hundreds of millions of pounds, plus grid connection costs and contracted revenue commitments running from day one. The cost of specialist fire safety consultancy is a fraction of the cost of one month's planning delay.
FireAccord's fees represent a small fraction of project capital value. The cost of a single month's planning delay on a major BESS project — finance charges, delayed revenue, grid connection running costs, team time — typically exceeds the total cost of specialist fire safety consultancy for the entire project. This is not a cost. It is insurance against a well-documented and entirely avoidable risk.
Fire engineering consultancies can produce technically competent documentation. What they cannot produce is a Battery Safety Management Plan written by someone who has led operational fire crews, chaired strategic risk committees, and sat in the room when Fire Services make decisions about the facilities they protect.
"A Watch Commander reviewing a Tactical Fire Response Plan needs to see how their crews will actually work on site — not a template response that could apply to any project. That judgement comes from operational experience, not from reading the guidance."
FireAccord was founded by a former UK Fire & Rescue Service officer with 30 years of service, the last decade at senior strategic management level. The core expertise is community risk management and organisational risk management — understanding how Fire Services think about, assess, and respond to risk in their operational areas.
That background is what produces FRS endorsement rather than FRS tolerance. Local Planning Authorities and Fire & Rescue Services respond differently to documentation they recognise as operationally credible — and that difference determines whether planning conditions are discharged or contested.
From operational to senior strategic management, with direct experience of how Fire Services assess, engage with, and make decisions about large-scale fire risk.
The final decade at a level responsible for community risk management and organisational risk management — understanding the strategic as well as the operational dimension of FRS decision-making.
Specialist knowledge of NFCC v2 guidance, the Battery Energy Storage Systems (Fire Safety) Bill, and the specific documentation requirements that determine FRS responses to BESS planning applications across different local authority areas.
Every document required to discharge fire safety planning conditions for a BESS development — produced to a standard that reflects genuine operational knowledge of how Fire & Rescue Services review, challenge, and ultimately endorse them.
Systematic identification and assessment of fire risk specific to the site, technology, and operational context — the foundation document for all subsequent fire safety planning.
The overarching fire safety management framework for the project — setting out how fire risk is managed across the full asset lifecycle from construction through to decommissioning.
Produced in outline and detailed form (O-BSMP and D-BSMP) to NFCC v2 guidance standards — the core document assessed by Fire & Rescue Services in the planning consultation process.
Developed in direct liaison with the local Fire & Rescue Service — ensuring that the emergency response framework reflects actual operational capability and resource deployment in the area.
The operational document for attending fire crews — produced to reflect how Watch Commanders and crews will actually approach, assess, and respond to a fire incident at the specific site.
The detailed Battery Safety Management Plan — produced at the appropriate stage of project development to satisfy planning condition discharge requirements and support FID preparation.
Beyond the documents: active management of the Fire & Rescue Service relationship throughout the planning process. Pre-application engagement, consultation response management, attendance at meetings, and the direct officer-to-officer communication that produces genuine endorsement. This is the service that no document alone can replicate — and the one that most directly determines outcomes at planning committee.
Whether you're at design stage, approaching a planning submission, or need to discharge existing conditions, we'd welcome a conversation about your fire safety position.
There's no obligation — a brief call is usually enough to establish whether there's a fit and what the right approach would be for your project.