In short
Your exposure is residents charging e-bikes in flats, hallways and stairwells, using equipment you did not buy and cannot inspect. A prohibition on its own tends to move charging somewhere you cannot see it. Providing a usable alternative is what changes behaviour.
This is the hardest version of the problem on this site, because you have the least control over the two things that matter most: what comes onto the premises, and where it gets plugged in.
Why the location is the whole issue
An e-bike is bulky, so it gets charged where it fits: a hallway, a stairwell landing, beside a flat entrance door. Those are precisely the places where a fire does the most harm, because they are the escape route for everyone above.
206
e-bike and e-scooter fires in London in 2025 — an average of 17 a month. Around 83% involved an e-bike. Two people died.
Source: London Fire Brigade, 28 January 2026.
Where this sits legally
In England and Wales the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 puts duties on the responsible person for the common parts. The Fire Safety Act 2021 clarified that the building’s structure, external walls and flat entrance doors fall within the fire risk assessment — which is directly relevant when a bike is charging against a flat entrance door. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own regimes; see UK law on storing lithium-ion batteries.
Whether you can prohibit charging inside a dwelling depends on your tenancy or lease terms, and that is a question for your own legal advice rather than for us. What we can say is that the fire risk assessment needs to record the decision and the reasoning either way.
What tends to work
- Find out what is actually happening. Block inspections that look for bikes in communal areas, charging leads across landings, and packs stored in electrical cupboards. You cannot assess what you have not counted.
- Provide somewhere better. A designated external or separated charging point, ideally in a tested enclosure with detection reporting to somewhere staffed. This is the intervention that moves charging out of the stairwell.
- Write the policy down, communicate it in plain language, and repeat it. Residents are not being reckless; most have no idea that a charger bought online can be the problem.
- Name conversion kits specifically. Self-assembled packs recur throughout serious incident reporting. “No converted bikes” is clearer than “use approved equipment”.
- Give people a route for a swollen pack. Residents who notice a problem currently have no safe option and will put it in a bin store. Tell them who to call.
Frequently asked questions
Can we simply ban e-bikes from the building?
Whether you can depends on your tenancy or lease terms — take your own advice. Whether you should is a separate question. A ban with no alternative usually pushes charging out of sight rather than off the premises, and an unenforceable prohibition is worse in a fire investigation than a managed arrangement. Most landlords who have addressed this seriously combined a stated policy with a provided charging location.
Are we responsible for what residents charge inside their own flats?
Your duties under fire safety legislation attach to the common parts and, since the Fire Safety Act 2021, to the structure, external walls and flat entrance doors. What happens inside a dwelling is not directly within that scope, but a fire that starts there does not respect the boundary — which is why communication and provision matter even where the duty does not reach. Take advice on your specific tenure arrangements.
Is a bike store with charging points a good idea, or does it concentrate the risk?
It concentrates it deliberately, which is the point: one location you have designed, sited away from escape routes, with detection and containment, instead of thirty locations you have not. It only works if it is convenient enough to use and if the detection reports somewhere a person will act on it overnight. Siting and ventilation are the parts to get right, and they are site-specific.