Sectors
Places of worship.
Congregation size does not determine the tier. Places of worship are standard duty premises irrespective of capacity, and the enhanced duty cannot reach them.
01 — The tier cap
The 800 threshold does not apply.
Schedule 1, paragraph 9 of the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 covers premises used for communal worship or other communal religious practice. It then makes an unusual provision, easily missed:
Schedule 1, paragraph 9
Where the relevant Schedule 1 use of qualifying premises is [communal worship], the premises are standard duty premises for the purposes of this Part regardless of how they would otherwise be treated.
Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 (c. 10). Checked against legislation.gov.uk on 10 September 2026.
“Regardless of how they would otherwise be treated” is the operative phrase. The enhanced duty begins at 800 for most uses. For worship premises it does not begin at all. A cathedral seating two thousand is a standard duty premises in precisely the way a village chapel is.
The commercial consequence follows. Enhanced-tier work quoted on the basis of attendance figures — a documented vulnerability assessment, a named individual accountable to the regulator, the full apparatus — is work the Act does not require of worship premises.
02 — What still applies
The cap fixes the tier, not the obligation.
The cap determines the tier. It does not remove the premises from scope. Where it is reasonable to expect that from time to time 200 or more individuals may be present at the same time, the standard duty applies — and for most parish churches, mosques, synagogues, temples and gurdwaras, a festival, a funeral or a major feast day clears 200 comfortably even where an ordinary week does not.
What the standard duty requires is procedural, and it accords with the way most congregations already operate:
- Evacuation — moving people out, including those who cannot move quickly.
- Invacuation — bringing people in or holding them, where outside is the greater risk.
- Lockdown — securing doors and routes to delay an attacker.
- Communication — alerting people quickly, in a building that may be full and acoustically difficult.
The particular difficulty for worship premises is that those who would have to act are ordinarily volunteers, they change, and the building is often open to anyone who enters — which is the purpose of it, and not something protective security should be permitted to erode.
Two matters to check
- Halls and rooms let separately. A church hall hired for events may carry its own Schedule 1 use (paragraph 6, venue for hire). The Principal Use of Premises Regulations 2026, in force 15 October 2026, govern which use is principal where a building has more than one.
- Ticketed events. A concert or festival held at the premises is assessed separately under the qualifying-events limb, where 800 or more and controlled entry can bring it into scope on its own terms.
03 — Engagement
What an engagement produces here.
Worship premises are standard duty by definition, so the work is narrow and the cost should reflect that. Anything quoted beyond it should be questioned.
- Confirmation of the standard-duty position in writing, with the paragraph it rests on.
- Evacuation, invacuation, lockdown and communication procedures written for the building, including those who cannot move quickly.
- A briefing volunteers can absorb, and a record of who received it.
- The separate position for hall lettings and ticketed events, settled on paper.
Scoped to the premises, never to a package, and stated as a fixed fee before work begins — see how an engagement runs.
Next
Confirm your position.
The scope checker applies the Schedule 1 caps correctly — select “place of worship” and it will not return the enhanced tier, whatever figure is entered.