Hi all, 

I have a question, i'm trying to find an answer online but it seems that the situation is a bit different for everyone. We are buying a 2 beds apartment, on the ground floor, in a victorian house composed of 4 flats. 

We're wondering if we are able to break down the wall in the hallway (crossed in red on the below plan) to open up the living room/kitchen space, but I know there's some regulations regarding fire escape. Does this seem possible?

Thanks

Marie

You would need to ask your local authority Building Control department. The biggest issue would be you would removing the 'protected' hallway (a 30 minute fire resistant area) and making the other rooms 'inner rooms' requiring escape through an access room, which as a kitchen is a higher risk. Being ground floor you do have the option of escape windows to bedrooms, but:

This also affects the safety of the other flats as the protection of the common stair usually relies on 60 minute fire resistant walls with only 30 minute fire rated flat front doors on the assumption the 30 minute protected hallway and inner fire doors will add to the protection.

If the block is stay put this is more significant than if it's full evacuate.

It's not impossible to do, open plan flats do exist, but you may be expected to carry out compensatory measures which could include just additional smoke detection or potentially a domestic sprinkler system.