Setting up a non-ESD area in a lab
Just to complete the circle, we passed the audit and it was acceptable to have a non-esd area in an other ESD protected lab. The only requirements were that the area is suitably marked out (we have tape with arrows on which indicated which side was ESD protected), and that anything highly charged is a good distance from EPA work areas.

A side comment regarding ESD audits and protection is everybody has a different idea what is ESD good, and what is not, what is required and what is overkill. By sticking to a fixed, official standard (in our case IEC 61340), we avoided conflicts of so called common sense and had black and white standards to adhere to.

Also training is an on going thing which often organisations can improve, but the biggest issue we had is that ESD was not really considered except when directly handling sensitive products. We had to replace or refurb a lot of racking shelves, furniture, tools, workbenches etc because ESD was not considered when they were bought.