How does Martyn's Law work for a parish or community council with several buildings?
In short
Where a parish or community council owns several buildings, each is usually assessed on its own — they only count as one set where one forms part of other qualifying premises and the same person or body is responsible for two or more of them. It's control, not ownership or a licence, that decides who the responsible person is, a point the statutory guidance corrected in August 2026.
Key points
Each qualifying premises is normally assessed separately. Section 2(5) only treats two or more as one set where qualifying premises form part of other qualifying premises and the same person is responsible for two or more of them.
Control decides who the responsible person is, not who owns the building or holds a licence for it — confirmed by a correction to the guidance's own worked example in August 2026.
Where one building is used for more than one Schedule 1 purpose, there's a two-step test for its "principal" use, and the amount of time spent on each purpose does not feature in the first step at all.
Whether several halls genuinely form "one set" under section 2(5) depends on facts the product cannot see on its own — that's a case for a closer look.
Each building is usually its own assessment
Section 2(5) of the Act only combines separate premises into one set where two conditions both hold: the premises form part of other qualifying premises, and the same person is responsible for two or more of them. Where either condition is missing, the Act applies to each premises on its own, with its own count of people and its own assessment. A council running three village halls through three separate, independently run committees is unlikely to meet either condition — each hall stands or falls on its own numbers. A council running several buildings through one centrally managed team, where the buildings genuinely function as parts of a single site, is a different picture, and this is exactly the kind of fact pattern that needs a closer look rather than a guess.
Control decides who is responsible, not the deed or the licence
The statutory guidance is explicit that it is control of the premises, in connection with its relevant use, that fixes who the responsible person is — not who owns the building or holds a licence for it. A correction to the guidance's own worked example, issued on 6 August 2026, makes this sharper than before: where a brewery or company holds the licence for a pub but a tenant is in control of it day to day, the responsible person is the tenant, because the tenant is in control. The same reasoning carries straight across to a parish-owned hall run by an independent volunteer committee: ownership sits with the council, but if the committee is the body actually in control, the duty is usually the committee's.
If one building has more than one use
Some council-owned buildings serve more than one purpose under the Act — a hall that also hosts a polling station, say, or a community centre that includes a library. Where that happens, there is now a statutory two-step test for which use is the "principal" one. The first step asks whether the use relates most closely to the building's purpose and nature, considering things like what it was built or adapted for and how it's physically laid out — and the amount of time spent on each use does not feature at this step at all. Only if that first step genuinely cannot settle the question does time become one of several factors considered at a second step. A council with a genuinely mixed-use building should expect this to take some working through, rather than assuming the use that happens most often automatically wins.
Common questions
- Our council owns the hall, but a volunteer committee runs it day to day. Who is responsible?
Usually whoever is in control of the premises, which for an independently run hall is typically the committee rather than the council — the statutory guidance's corrected worked example points the same way for a tenant running a council-owned pub.
- We have three halls across the parish. Do they count as one premises or three?
That depends on whether one forms part of other qualifying premises and they share the same responsible person, under section 2(5). Three halls run separately by separate committees are likely to be three separate assessments, but where the facts are less clear-cut, this needs a closer look — the free scope check is a reasonable place to start working through it.
- Does it matter which of several uses a building has?
Yes — the principal use can affect both who the responsible person is and whether a standard-tier carve-out applies at higher numbers. The test is a two-step one, and time spent on each use is not part of the first step.
Check your building, free
Answer a few questions about who uses your building and how many people could be there at once. We’ll tell you plainly whether Martyn’s Law applies, and why.
Sources
Last reviewed 2 November 2026, against the statutory guidance of 15 April 2026 (corrected 6 August 2026).