The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) has reported its strongest period of activity to date, with a record 272 decisions across all Gateway 2 application types made in the three months to 24 November, bringing the total to 578 since 31 August.
The figures point to continued momentum in the approval process for new high-rise residential buildings as the regulator works through both new submissions and a backlog of historic cases.
London continues to dominate the system, accounting for 76% of all Gateway 2 decisions in October.
In total, 409 decisions relating to the capital have been made since August. A further 40 legacy applications submitted under the previous regulatory model were closed between 31 August and 24 November, half of which also related to London schemes.
SCALING UP
The BSR said a minimum of nine additional applications had been assessed as ready for the enhanced ‘approval with requirements’ route, subject to final checks.
Most of the 54 remaining historic applications are expected to progress by the new year as officials continue to accelerate case clearance.
The regulator attributed the increased throughput to direct engagement with applicants and regulatory partners, targeted work to remove individual blockers and the scaling up of its new batching process introduced in September.
The batching system groups applications and sends them to specialist engineering services suppliers for accelerated assessment. To date, bundles covering 217 new-build and remediation cases have been dispatched, with more issued weekly in line with supplier capacity.
OPERATIONAL CHALLENGES
In parallel, the BSR is preparing a targeted plan to apply lessons from its recent operational changes to remediation cases in the new year.
Its recently established Innovation Unit, made up of registered building inspectors and technical engineers, is also contributing to faster turnaround times and improved application quality.
The team is currently managing 73 live new-build applications and has adopted a more rigorous approach to rapidly validating or rejecting incomplete submissions. The first approvals from this early cohort are expected in December.
ACHIEVABLE MILESTONES
Charlie Pugsley, Chief Executive Officer of the Building Safety Regulator, says: “The immediate, positive results we saw from our pilot operational changes have established a strong foundation for continued success.
“We are on track to continue to clear the majority historic cases by the end of December by engaging with applicants and our regulatory partners, seeing the benefits of our new batching system, and building upon the initial hard work of the Innovation Unit.
“Across BSR there is a confidence that projected milestones remain achievable, but rightly we remain cautiously optimistic.
“We are fully committed to supporting the pace of essential construction while upholding the essential safety standards that keep people safe in new and also existing homes.”
