Can I remove/block up fire door in shop.

[Guest adam]

We have moved into a ground floor retail space, the shop was once a large wine bar/restaurant which has since been divided into three shop. The third of the shop we now occupy contains a fire door (top left next to loo on attached plan) leading onto a courtyard at the back of the shop with a path leading down the side and to the street at the front, this served as the only fire escape for the whole restaurant, what is now our front door was always locked. The courtyard and path belong to the flat above and we have a right of access only. 

We would like to block up the fire door as we do not expect to ever have large quantities of people in the shop, our frontage is fully glazed with lots of natural and street lighting, and a large glazed front door with a clear line of site from the back of the shop to the front door, the distance from the back of the shop (where the fire doors is) to the front door is approx 10m. We want to cover the fire door as it removes valuable retail space from the back of the shop. Neither of the other two shop spaces have fire escapes. 

 

[AnthonyB]

Your fire risk assessment should address this although the standard benchmark guidance would allow this for the shop based on a travel distance under 18m (measured around furniture, fixtures and fittings from the rear of the shop, not a straight line unless it's open plan enough to allow it) and the shop not having over 60 persons in it.