electrical cupboard used for storage

[Ian B]

Hi all, I am an electrical contractor who is keen to work with a good level of fire safety.

A client of mine has recently on site FRA and one of the action point raised by the assessor is a electrical cupboard used as storage. This has previously mentioned on electrical reports but more due to accessibility regulations.

While on site the other day a carpenter turned up to price boxing in the electrical equipment. at this point alarm bells started ringing in my head as to having further reduced access to electrical equipment.  Now the obvious solution is to find alternative storage but due to being in central London and space at a premium an alternative solution is beaning looked into.

The Assessors notes were as follows  ACTION The responsible person is to ensure that the electrical cupboard is made sterile by removing all other items from the room OR adding 30 minutes fire resistant compartmentation to separate the electrical boxes from the rest of the room. The latter option would allow the room to be still used for storage and an office with small loss of space.

My question really  is 'is there an alternative solution available?'

My thoughts were by reducing the shelving and building a cupboard with sliding doors this would perform compartmentation between the stock and the cupboard.

The cupboard has 1x automatic fire detection (addressable alarm system) but the door is not fire rated and has a grill in the bottom. 

any help would be appreciated. 

[AnthonyB]

It's the sort of premises where if you don't box it off it will get stuff stocked against it, a managed solution. Looks too tight to replace the shelves with metal cabinets with lockable metal doors as another alternative.