London, United Kingdom – A newly released open dataset from RiskFire shows that the enforcement of fire safety regulations varies by a factor of thirteen across different areas of London.
The London Fire Safety Index compiles data on fire incidents, safety audits, enforcement notices, and average emergency response times for every one of the capital’s 33 boroughs into one searchable platform. The information originates from London Fire Brigade records available on the London Datastore, is made available under the Open Government Licence, and can be freely searched, downloaded, or embedded.
In the last twelve months, the London Fire Brigade performed 7,049 fire safety audits throughout the city and handed out 727 enforcement notices, which works out to an average of 11.1 notices per one hundred audits. This average, however, masks a significant disparity. A business checked in Ealing, where 23.7% of audits lead to a notice, faces a risk of receiving an enforcement notice that is thirteen times greater than one inspected in Bexley, where the figure stands at 1.8%. Following closely are Brent and Harrow, with rates of 21.8% and 20.9% respectively. At the lower end are Bromley, Newham, and Southwark, with rates of 3.8%, 4.1%, and 5.2%.
The number of audits conducted does not closely correspond to the number of fires. Haringey experienced 483 fires but only 89 safety audits, whereas neighboring Islington recorded 387 fires and 387 audits, a five-fold difference in the intensity of auditing between these two adjacent north London boroughs.
Response times across the city vary by nearly two minutes. The average time for London is five minutes and 31 seconds. Lambeth boasts the quickest average at four minutes 36 seconds, while Hillingdon is the slowest at six minutes 25 seconds, which is 39% longer. This variation is largely due to geography, as the five boroughs with the longest response times are all situated in outer London.
The Index is accompanied by a cladding remediation tracker, which uses data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s Building Safety Remediation program. Nine years after the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the average rate of completion across 66 English local authorities is 36.2%. Of the 29 London authorities included, 24 are less than halfway through their remediation efforts. Hillingdon has finished 16.1% of its work. Nationally, Stoke-on-Trent has not completed any.
“A landlord in Ealing and a landlord in Bexley are under exactly the same legal duty, but the chance of that duty ever being tested looks very different depending on which side of a boundary the building sits. That doesn’t change what the law requires — it just means a lot of people are relying on not being asked. We published this because the information existed, it just wasn’t in a form anyone outside the industry could use,” said a spokesperson of RiskFire.
This data release comes as obligations on building owners have expanded considerably. Section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 removed the five-employee threshold for recording a fire risk assessment starting in October 2023, bringing a much larger number of small landlords, HMO operators, and small business owners under these rules. Up until now, detailed information on where enforcement is actually taking place at the borough level has not been easily available to them.
“None of this data is new — it’s all published by London Fire Brigade and MHCLG. What was missing was a way to see your own borough without downloading three spreadsheets and knowing which columns to join. We’ve put it in one place, made it free to download and free to embed, because the people who most need it are small landlords and building managers who were never the intended audience for a statistical release,” RiskFire’s spokesperson added.
Both datasets are available for full download in CSV or JSON formats, and any publisher is able to embed the borough charts at no cost.
Two important notes apply. Enforcement rates reflect both the level of underlying compliance and each borough’s specific enforcement strategy, and the data cannot differentiate between the two; therefore, a high rate does not automatically indicate a worse borough. Response times are heavily influenced by geography, with the five slowest boroughs all being outer London areas that cover more land. Cladding percentages are calculated using banded building counts as released by MHCLG, so they should be taken as indicative figures.
Sources: London Fire Brigade via the London Datastore for fire data, as of 1 June 2026, and MHCLG Building Safety Remediation monthly data for cladding, as of 31 May 2026. RiskFire consolidates and presents this data. It does not collect it.
About RiskFire
RiskFire provides free fire safety compliance guidance for landlords, letting agents, property managers, and business owners, covering responsibilities under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 across 17 property categories. It also links property owners with accredited third-party fire risk assessors.
Quick Notes:
- Free reuse. All figures are published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Charts on any borough page can be embedded free of charge. Both datasets download in full as CSV or JSON with no registration required.
- Borough-level detail. Individual pages for each of the 33 London boroughs are searchable by borough name or postcode.
- Interviews. Ray Ansel, a BAFE SP205 and NFRAR registered fire risk assessor, is available for comment on fire risk assessment practice, competency requirements and the practical effect of the Fire Safety Act 2021 and Building Safety Act 2022 on landlords and small businesses.
- Updates. Both trackers are refreshed as new source data is published, monthly in the case of cladding remediation.
Learn more at https://riskfire.org.uk/
Enquiries can be sent to hello@riskfire.org.uk
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Company Name: RiskFire.org
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(E) mail: hello@riskfire.org.uk
Website: https://riskfire.org.uk/
City: London
Country: United Kingdom
