DAMAGING and unnecessary fire regulations are threatening to drive hundreds of small Westcountry tourist businesses to close, at a cost of £100 million to the region's economy.

Home-based businesses like bed and breakfast guest houses – the backbone of the South West's holiday industry – are at risk from updated regulations that critics believe are inconsistent and burdensome. Now a campaign, Fire Safety Sense, has been launched with the support of nine national tourism organisations in an effort to have the rules overturned.

Under the regulations some B&B owners complain they are being forced to spend thousands of pounds on safety measures including installing five different kinds of fire extinguisher, lines of LED lighting to mark fire escape routes and weather-protected external stairways to replace ladders. For many, the cost of complying with the rules makes it uneconomic to stay in business and they are simply shutting up shop.

According to tourism leader Malcolm Bell, chief executive of South West Tourism, staying visitors provide £2.5 billion to the local economy and the B&B and small tourism industry accounts for about 10 per cent of that – £250 million.

He said: "The loss of business through the fire safety rules could lead to a loss of about £100 million to the economy as people go to stay elsewhere."

Critics say the new rules have led to widespread confusion, with some people not even aware that there had been changes or where to find out about them. But assistant chief officer Pete Smith, who is in charge of community safety at Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service said every effort had been made to ensure everyone had been made aware of the new rules.

"These people are running a business. If you have bed and breakfast, then you want to make sure you have a food hygiene certificate to cover the food provision. In the same way, these rules ensure guests are as safe as possible.

"Both the Government and fire service have publicised the new rules and how to apply them. Tourism is important in the Westcountry and we want to make sure that compliance of these rules is as easy as possible."

Campaign leaders are now calling on the Government to adopt a more "common-sense" approach to the regulations which were first introduced in 2006. One of the organisations supporting the campaign is the Bed and Breakfast Association. Its chief executive, David Weston, said: "Many small B&Bs have already closed rather than substantially alter their homes or spend a five-figure sum to offer hospitality to a couple of guests – and the guests themselves are choosing B&Bs for their more home-from-home qualities.

"All our members are very fire-safety conscious, but we don't see why commercial fire systems and fire doors are necessary, for instance, in a cottage which already has smoke detectors and fire extinguishers, and a careful owner staying on the premises."

The Government changed fire safety law in October 2006 with the introduction of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. It placed the onus on businesses to ensure their properties complied with the most up-to-date fire safety regulations.

The assessment can be carried out either by the business using the guidelines or by hiring one of the many people working in fire safety consultancy. The fire service then carries out an audit of the businesses in its patch, usually by targeting the highest risk first – that being places where people spend the night.

One Westcountry B&B proprietor, who asked not to be named, said he feared the rules were already putting people out of business.

"If they continue to enforce the full rigours of the way they interpret the regulations, they will put hundreds of small bed and breakfasts and self catering establishments out of business.

"It's all down to interpretation. And what they are doing is interpreting those guidelines as law. The guidelines state clearly at the beginning 'these are not prescriptive – they are purely for guidance'."

He said the guidelines went too far, adding: "I have not found anyone injured through fire, let alone killed, certainly not in this area. So why are these rules being inflicted so sternly? Who benefits from this, apart from the bureaucrats and all the red tape? The only thing in my view made any safer are the jobs of these bureaucrats and the officialdom that administer this nonsense."

Another criticism of the regulations has been the inconsistent way in which they were publicised. In some cases proprietors found themselves baffled as they tried to find out information on the rules.

Toni Evans of the Hunter's Lodge in Dartmeet, said: "We received no official notification that we were required to make any changes. We had great difficulty finding out precisely what was required and in the end we discovered we could carry out our own risk assessment.

"Through this, we established that we needed to introduce only a few extra extinguishers and alarms. But some of the quotes we found were very expensive. And it was only after further research we realised that we could save money buying these things ourselves."