Martyn's Law for village halls and community centres

Village halls and community centres fall under the "halls" use in Schedule 1 of the Act, which includes premises used as a venue for hire for events or activities that are mainly for the benefit of visiting members of the public. A scout hut, church hall or social club function room that is regularly hired out can fall under the same heading.

Your hall is covered if it is reasonable to expect 200 or more people there at the same time, from time to time. The statutory guidance uses a village hall to illustrate the test: a hall that has never had more than 150 people at once stays out of scope when a band books a one-off concert for 250, but would come into the standard tier if further concerts of that size were reasonably expected. Most halls that are covered will be in the standard tier, which runs from 200 to 799 people. The free checker will confirm where you sit.

Start with your fire risk assessment

Many village halls will find they are out of scope. If the occupancy figure in your fire risk assessment, or a limit in your premises licence, is below 200 and is observed, you are very unlikely to be covered. A hall that can safely hold 180 people, staff and helpers included, would not normally reach the threshold.

If your hall can hold more, look at your biggest regular bookings: wedding receptions, dances, pantomimes, craft fairs, the annual show or the election count. If bookings like those come round each year and bring 200 or more people, the hall is in scope. A one-off booking that is not expected to recur does not count.

Count the whole building

Count everyone in the premises at the busiest time, not only the main hall. If a wedding in the main hall, a group in the meeting room and volunteers in the kitchen are all there at once, add them together. The premises as a whole, including any land that goes with them, is what matters.

The responsible person is whoever has control of the premises. For most village halls and community centres that is the management committee or trustees, often a registered charity, and sometimes a parish or town council or another trust. It is an organisation, and it acts through a named lead contact, such as the hall secretary, chair or booking secretary.

The responsible person is not the hirer. The statutory guidance is clear that when premises are hired out, the responsible person remains the same. Someone who books the hall for a Saturday night does not take on the legal duty for the building, and the committee cannot pass its duty to them. Record who holds the duty on a responsible person and SIA notification record.

What to ask of hirers

The guidance says the responsible person should explain the legal requirements to anyone who hires the premises, and what they will need to do, while keeping oversight of the procedures. It also says those expectations can be set out and agreed in the hire contract. If the SIA asks, you must be able to show that you clearly told the hirer what was required.

In practice, a short schedule to your hire agreement works well. It should ask the hirer to read the procedures and the poster, name the person on their side who will take charge if something happens, confirm they know where the exits, the safe area and the lockable rooms are, and agree to brief their own helpers. Keep a signed copy with each booking.

Large ticketed one-off events

A hall's usual status can change for a single event. The statutory guidance gives the example of a standard tier village hall hired by a company for a one-off ticketed fundraiser large enough to be a qualifying event, with 800 or more people expected and checks on entry. For that event the company becomes the responsible person and must meet enhanced duties, while the committee remains responsible for the hall at all other times. If a booking like this comes in, the committee and the organiser must co-ordinate, and the organiser should read the government guidance and consider professional help.

The Home Office describes six methods for working out expected numbers. For a village hall, the most useful are:

• The fire safety occupancy figure, if your busiest regular bookings fill the hall.
• Booking records, if they never come close, showing your largest regular events and how many people they actually brought.
• A licence limit, if your premises licence sets a maximum number and it is kept to.

Include everyone: guests, the hirer's helpers, caterers, bar staff, performers and any committee members on site. Write down your figure, the method and your reasoning in a capacity assessment record, because the SIA can ask how you reached it. Our guide on how to work out your capacity explains every method.

The Act requires procedures for evacuation, invacuation, lockdown and communication, so far as reasonably practicable. The biggest challenge for a hall is that there are often no staff on the night. Your procedures have to work in the hands of a hirer and their helpers, who may never have been in the building before. The statutory guidance recognises this for unstaffed premises and suggests sharing procedures through means such as posters in communal areas.

Evacuation

Mark every exit clearly and make sure all of them open from the inside without a key during a hire. Choose an assembly point away from the car park and the road, where emergency vehicles will arrive, and a second one in case the first is unsafe. Set this out in your evacuation procedure.

Invacuation

If the danger is outside, people are usually safest in the main hall with the external doors shut and away from the windows. Decide which doors are closed first and who does it, and how anyone outside, such as smokers or people in the car park, is brought in. The steps are in the invacuation procedure.

Lockdown

Identify the rooms that lock, such as the kitchen, a store or the committee room, and check that they can be locked from the inside. The hardest question for a hall is keys: if the hirer does not hold them, the plan must say how they get access in an emergency, or which rooms are left unlocked during hires. Record the answer in the lockdown procedure.

Communication

A laminated wall poster by the main door or the kitchen hatch, telling the person in charge what to do in order, is the single most useful thing a hall can have. Add simple scripts from the communication procedure for the hirer to read out. Set up a contact list so that trustees and key holders can be reached quickly, and agree who will deal with the police and the press on the committee's behalf afterwards.

When calling 999 and unable to speak, stay on the line, listen to the call handler and press 55 when prompted.

Brief the committee and the key holders first, using a one-page briefing sheet. Then concentrate on regular hirers, such as the weekly dance class or the drama group, who use the hall most often and will be in charge when something happens. Record who has been briefed in a briefing and review log. For one-off hirers, the hire agreement schedule and the poster do the work.

1. 01Check the occupancy figure in your fire risk assessment and your biggest regular bookings.
2. 02If you are likely to reach 200, confirm the committee is the responsible person and name the lead contact.
3. 03Walk the building and agree the exits, assembly points, safe area and lockable rooms, including who holds the keys.
4. 04Write down your four procedures and put a poster where every hirer will see it.
5. 05Add a short Martyn's Law schedule to your hire agreement.
6. 06Brief committee members, key holders and regular hirers, and review it all at the annual general meeting.

The law does not require a written document at standard tier, but the statutory guidance says documenting even simple procedures is good practice. For a building with a different team inside every night, writing it down is the only way the plan travels with the booking. Our Standard Tier Pack prepares all ten documents for your hall, with the committee named as the responsible person, from £79 a year. See pricing. It is a set of templates to review and adopt, not legal advice.

For the wider picture, read Martyn's Law explained and the full list of covered buildings.