St Helens in Focus: Fire Safety, Risk and Compliance
St Helens is an industrial and commercial town in the metropolitan borough of Merseyside, with a history and economy dominated by glass manufacturing, chemicals and logistics. The Pilkington glassworks — now part of NSG Group — put St Helens on the world map and its legacy remains visible in the town's manufacturing base and in the specific fire safety challenges that glass and chemical industry premises present. The M62 corridor runs through the south of the borough, anchoring a significant logistics and distribution economy at Haydock, Burtonwood and Newton-le-Willows. The town centre itself has undergone substantial investment in the area around Corporation Street and the retail core. Eccleston, Parr, Rainford and Billinge cover the residential suburbs, with a mix of post-war housing and newer development. Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service is the enforcing authority for the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 across St Helens. Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service opened a new Community Fire Station on Watson Street in St Helens in 2020, replacing two earlier stations, and operates a hybrid staffing model to maintain response times across the borough.
For responsible persons across St Helens's varied premises, the FSO places a direct legal duty to carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment and keep it under review. Our fire risk assessments in St Helens page sets out how we work. Two incidents from the past two years illustrate fire risks that are directly relevant to responsible persons across the borough.
Flat Fire, Stevens Street, Thatto Heath, St Helens — January 2024
On the afternoon of Monday 8 January 2024, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service received calls to a fire on Stevens Street, Scholes Lane, in the Thatto Heath area of St Helens. MFRS were alerted at 12.59pm and on scene at 1.04pm, with seven fire engines and an aerial appliance in attendance. Crews arrived to find a fire in a first-floor flat above a row of shops, which was well alight and had spread into the roof space of four brick-built terraced properties at the incident site. The incident was sectorised, with four firefighters wearing breathing apparatus committed to firefighting using two hose reel jets. Merseyside Police and North West Ambulance Service were also in attendance, with police managing traffic. Residents and businesses nearby were asked to close windows and doors due to smoke.
Seven fire engines and an aerial appliance at Stevens Street, Thatto Heath, St Helens, 8 January 2024. Video: St Helens Star / Facebook.
A fire in a flat above a row of shops that spreads into the roof space of four separate terraced properties within the time it takes for seven fire engines and an aerial appliance to respond illustrates both how rapidly a fire in a flat can develop and how the connected roof voids of Victorian and Edwardian terrace construction can carry fire laterally across property boundaries before any passive compartmentation has an opportunity to restrict it. The Stevens Street incident involved what MFRS described as a "first-floor flat above a row of shops" — a building type that is common across Thatto Heath, Eccleston, Parr and the residential town centre areas of St Helens, and one that carries a specific compliance profile that responsible persons must understand.
A flat above a commercial premises is a mixed-use building. Under the FSO, the responsible person for the commercial ground-floor unit carries duties in relation to the escape route from their premises and, to the extent that they have some control over the structure, in relation to the common parts. The residential occupier above may be subject to different regulatory obligations. The freeholder or managing agent has duties in relation to the building's structure and the common parts — which, in a flat above a shop, typically include the shared staircase that gives access to both. Where the staircase is the only means of escape from the upper-floor residential accommodation, the fire safety provisions for the ground-floor commercial unit must not compromise that escape route: fire doors, detection, and compartmentation between the commercial and residential parts of the building are all relevant, and they must be addressed consistently whether the commercial and residential parts are in different ownerships. A fire risk assessment for any commercial premises that occupies the ground floor of a mixed-use building must address this vertical relationship, not just the commercial unit in isolation. Fire door inspections in mixed-use buildings are important not only for the doors within each unit but for the separation between uses — the door from the staircase into the residential accommodation, and the door from the commercial unit into any common area. Our service for managing agents covers the coordinating obligations of those responsible for the common parts of mixed-use buildings of this type.
Arson at Commercial and Industrial Premises, Bold Road, St Helens — May 2026
At around 9.45pm on Tuesday 26 May 2026, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service were called to reports of fire at a business site on Bold Road in the Bold area of St Helens. On arrival, crews found that both a bin shed and a warehouse at the site had been set on fire. The smaller bin shed fire was extinguished using a fire extinguisher, while MFRS attended and extinguished the warehouse fire. A joint investigation by MFRS and Merseyside Police began, and Merseyside Police confirmed that both fires at the site were believed to have been started deliberately and appealed for witnesses and footage. MFRS crews worked through the night into Wednesday morning, damping down the affected area and monitoring temperatures before making up equipment and handing the scene back to site staff.
Footage of the fire at the Bold Road commercial site, St Helens, 26 May 2026. Video: Facebook.
Arson at a commercial site involving two separate structures — a bin shed and a warehouse — simultaneously is a reminder that deliberate fire at commercial premises often does not begin inside the main building. External structures such as bin stores, waste compactors, wooden pallets and combustible loading-area contents provide easily accessible ignition opportunities that require no internal access to the building, and from which fire can spread to the main structure through openings at loading bay level, through connected services or through the roof. A fire risk assessment for any commercial or industrial premises in St Helens — and particularly in the industrial areas around Bold, Haydock and Newton-le-Willows — must address the external arson risk as a foreseeable scenario, not a remote one. This means considering: whether combustible waste and packaging are stored in ways that provide an easy external ignition source; whether bin stores and waste areas are separated from the building's main fabric by adequate distance or fire-resistant construction; whether the perimeter security makes unauthorised access to the site or its external areas significantly harder; and whether the detection system within the building would activate if a fire established in an external structure before spreading internally. For tenants and owners of units on multi-occupier commercial and industrial estates, the arson risk does not stop at the unit boundary — a fire started in a shared bin store or loading area can affect multiple units, and coordination with the estate managing agent on the management of external combustible material is part of the Article 22 coordination obligation under the FSO. Our service for managing agents addresses the common-parts obligations on industrial estates.
Fire Safety Duties for Responsible Persons Across St Helens
Glass manufacturing, chemicals and the industrial base. St Helens's industrial base, centred around the NSG Group (Pilkington) complex on Cowley Hill and the cluster of chemical and manufacturing operations across the borough, involves process activities, high-temperature equipment and hazardous substances that generate fire safety obligations extending well beyond the standard FSO requirements for offices and commercial premises. For premises that store or use dangerous substances, the DSEAR requirements must be met alongside the FSO, and the two must be consistent with each other. The specific fire behaviour of molten glass, chemical feedstocks and their interaction with firefighting water must be addressed in an assessment that is specific to those operations, not adapted from a generic industrial template.
Logistics and the M62 corridor. The logistics and distribution operations at Haydock, Burtonwood and Newton-le-Willows represent one of the more significant concentrations of warehousing along the M62 corridor. Warehouse fire safety assessments for these premises must address high-bay racking, combustible packaging, shift patterns, loading dock security, and the specific arson exposure of large-footprint single-storey buildings in edge-of-town locations.
Mixed-use buildings and flats above commercial premises. As the Thatto Heath incident illustrates, St Helens has a substantial stock of mixed-use Victorian and Edwardian buildings where flats above shops require coordinated fire safety management across different ownerships and uses. The compliance obligations for these buildings span the FSO, the Housing Act 2004, and — for any flat in a building with a storey over 11 metres — the Building Safety Act 2022. Our fire risk assessment service covers mixed-use buildings explicitly, addressing the coordinating obligations of freeholders, leaseholders and commercial tenants.
HMOs and the residential rental sector. St Helens's private rented sector includes a significant HMO stock, particularly in the areas around the town centre and Eccleston. Our HMO fire safety service covers the FSO requirements alongside the licensing conditions imposed by St Helens Borough Council.
Fire Safety Support for St Helens
Fletcher Risk Management provides fire risk assessments in St Helens for responsible persons across the borough, from glass and chemical manufacturing premises and logistics operations to HMOs, mixed-use commercial buildings, and care and community facilities. We cover the full range of services: fire door inspections, fire safety training, evacuation plans, fire safety policies and evacuation chair training. Our assessors understand the MFRS enforcement context and produce documentation consistent with what MFRS expects to see at inspection.
Fire safety support across the North West and North Wales
Fletcher Risk Management provides fire risk assessments, fire door inspections and fire safety training for responsible persons across Chester, Cheshire, the Wirral, Merseyside, Greater Manchester, North Wales and beyond. To discuss your requirements, please get in touch.
This article is intended for general guidance only and does not constitute legal advice. Responsible persons should seek professional advice tailored to their specific premises and circumstances. Fletcher Risk Management Ltd provides fire risk assessments, fire door inspections, and fire safety training across the North West and North Wales. Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service is the enforcing authority for the FSO in St Helens.