The Fox Street Fire, Liverpool: Vacant Buildings, Construction Sites, and the Responsible Person
At around 2.20pm on Saturday 27 January 2024, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service were called to a fire at a four-storey building on Fox Street in Liverpool city centre. Within two hours, the incident had been declared a major incident. Twelve fire engines and two aerial appliances attended, with more than fifty firefighters at the scene at its height. The building was showing signs of structural collapse and evacuation orders were issued to neighbouring properties. The smoke plume was visible across a wide area of Merseyside, including over Goodison Park, where Everton were preparing to play Luton Town in the FA Cup that afternoon.
The building on Fox Street was a disused four-storey structure, approximately 100 metres by 50 metres, which had passed through a succession of developers and remained vacant for some years. A local councillor told the BBC that the site had a long and chequered history and that concerns about its condition had been raised repeatedly. Merseyside Police began investigating the cause of the fire, examining CCTV footage from the surrounding area, though no cause was publicly confirmed in the reporting that followed.
The fire raises questions about the duties that attach to vacant and derelict buildings, the risks they create for neighbouring occupiers, and what the owners and managers of buildings that sit unused — sometimes for years, often in urban locations surrounded by occupied commercial premises — are actually required to do about fire risk under the law.
BBC footage — Fox Street fire, Liverpool city centre, 27 January 2024
Vacant Buildings and the FSO: What the Law Actually Requires
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 applies to non-domestic premises. The responsible person is whoever has control of the premises — typically the owner or managing agent where a building is vacant. The FSO does not stop applying to a building simply because it is unoccupied, and the duty to carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment and implement appropriate precautions remains.
For a truly vacant building where no person ever enters — not even for maintenance, inspection, or security purposes — the practical scope of the FSO duty narrows, since the order is primarily concerned with protecting people who are or may be on the premises. But in practice, most vacant commercial buildings are not truly sealed. They are entered by contractors, inspectors, security personnel, or trespassers, and the risk to those people — and to occupants of neighbouring buildings — does not disappear simply because the primary use has ceased.
Neighbouring premises liability: A fire in a vacant building does not stay in that building. The Fox Street fire required the evacuation of surrounding properties and generated a smoke plume visible across the city. Responsible persons in adjacent commercial premises — offices, retail units, hospitality venues — have their own duties to ensure that risks from neighbouring buildings are considered in their fire risk assessment. Where a derelict or high-risk building sits immediately adjacent to your premises, that risk should be explicitly addressed.
Construction Sites, Development Projects, and the Responsible Person
The Fox Street building had reportedly been intended for development and had passed between developers over a number of years. Construction and development sites — including buildings acquired for redevelopment that have not yet entered active construction — occupy a specific position in fire safety law, where the FSO, the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, and the general law on occupiers' liability all interact.
Where a building is being actively developed, the principal contractor under CDM typically holds significant responsibilities for fire safety on site. But where a building is simply held, vacant and deteriorating, while planning and finance are assembled, the position is less clearly defined in practice — even though the FSO duty on whoever has control of the premises continues. A building in this state often has no active fire detection, no maintained means of escape, accumulating combustible debris, and potential for unauthorised access, all of which create conditions in which a fire, once started, will develop quickly and be difficult to control.
What vacant building owners should have in place
- A current fire risk assessment Even a vacant building should have a fire risk assessment if it is regularly entered or if there is a realistic possibility of people being on the premises. The assessment should address the specific risks of the vacant state: accumulated combustible materials, absence of active detection, potential for arson, and the implications for any neighbouring occupied buildings.
- Control of combustible materials Vacant buildings accumulate combustible loading quickly — timber hoarding, waste materials, displaced fixtures, and in some cases deliberate dumping. Regular inspections to clear combustible debris, combined with physical security measures that reduce the likelihood of arson, are basic precautions that make a material difference to fire risk in an empty building.
- Physical security Unauthorised access is a primary fire risk in vacant commercial premises. Arson by trespassers is a well-documented category of incident, and a building that cannot be secured adequately should be treated as a higher-risk premises for fire purposes. The Fox Street building had reportedly been a source of community concern for some time before the fire, and local residents described it as a known problem site.
- Notification to insurers and neighbours Insurers invariably impose specific conditions on vacant premises cover, and failure to comply with those conditions — including requirements around inspection frequency, security standards, and removal of combustibles — can affect the validity of a policy. Responsible developers and building owners should also consider whether neighbouring premises have been made aware of any elevated risk, as this information is relevant to the fire risk assessments those responsible persons are required to maintain.
- Review when circumstances change The risk profile of a vacant building changes when construction work begins, when contractors start accessing the site regularly, or when the security situation deteriorates. Any of these changes should trigger a review of the fire risk arrangements, not a continuation of whatever was in place when the building was first vacated.
What This Means for Responsible Persons in Neighbouring Premises
The Fox Street fire is also relevant to the responsible persons in the commercial and mixed-use premises that surrounded the building. An office, retail unit, or hospitality venue immediately adjacent to a large vacant building carries a fire risk profile that differs from one surrounded by actively managed, compliant neighbours, and a competent fire risk assessment should reflect that. This does not mean that every business in Liverpool city centre needs to factor derelict buildings into their assessment — but where a building in close proximity is visibly vacant, deteriorating, or the subject of known concerns, those responsible persons would be well advised to ensure their evacuation arrangements are current and their assessments address the external risk.
For managing agents overseeing commercial buildings in urban locations across Merseyside, Greater Manchester, and the wider North West, the question of what sits next door is increasingly relevant in older city centres where vacant commercial stock is common and development timelines are long.
Liverpool's Commercial Fire Safety Context
Liverpool combines a significant stock of older commercial and industrial buildings, an active development market, a large hospitality and licensed premises sector, and a number of high-density residential areas — a mix that creates a broad and varied fire safety compliance picture. Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service is the enforcing authority under the FSO for non-domestic premises across the area, and its enforcement activity covers offices, hotels, licensed premises, HMOs, and care homes across the city and the wider Merseyside area.
We carry out fire risk assessments and fire door inspections for businesses, landlords, and managing agents across Liverpool and the wider Merseyside area. If you manage premises in the city and your assessment has not been reviewed recently, or if you have concerns about how an adjacent property affects your fire risk profile, please get in touch.
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Get in Touch Fire Risk Assessments Managing Agents Areas We CoverThis article draws on publicly reported information about the Fox Street fire of 27 January 2024, including statements from Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, Merseyside Police, and BBC News reporting. The cause of the fire was under investigation at the time of reporting and no confirmed cause has been established in public reporting available to us. The fire risk management commentary is general guidance and does not constitute legal advice. Fletcher Risk Management Ltd is based in Chester and provides fire risk assessments, fire door inspections, and fire safety training across the North West and North Wales.