David Batchelor has had a long association with the fire safety industry and served as a firefighter with West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service. It was during his service that he received a commendation for bravery and incidents of note included the devastating fire at Uppark House, Petersfield, Sainsbury's supermarket, Chichester, a major flooding in Chichester and a fire in a ship's engine room in Littlehampton Harbour. During his fire service, David attended many operational incidents, many using Breathing Apparatus (BA).

David wrote technical assessments on new equipment and uniform and from 2006 he first lectured on the Fire Safety Regulatory Reform Fire Safety Order at Loughborough University. He also wrote technical bulletins whilst a member of The Institute of Sports and Recreation Management and the author of Fire Safety in Leisure which was published in the journal, "Recreation" and has been a guest speaker at many seminars and events as well as being the author of technical bulletins for the leisure and retail industry.

David has had a long association with the Fire Fighters Charity, originally as a fundraiser, then subsequently working at Marine Court, Littlehampton.

Prior to setting up Fire Safety Sussex, David was Technical Manager at Guildford Spectrum, the UK's largest leisure facility; he was the area Technical Manager for Aquaterra Leisure, Bath and North East Somerset contract, and worked at senior management level as Head of Direct Service Organisation (DSO) within local government managing technical, maintenance, housekeeping and hospitality teams within the private sector such as "Statutory Compliance" Manager at Interserve, a member of leisure trusts and registered charities.

Individual Qualifications & Professional Memberships: Awarded Fellowship of ISRM, member of CIMSPA, IOSH, Institution of Fire Engineers, Nebosh National General Certificate, Nebosh Fire.