IN Brief:
- The Building Safety Regulator approved 12,299 housing units through Gateway 2 in the 12 weeks to 1 May.
- The latest data shows 323 Gateway 2 decisions, with a 71% approval rate across the reporting period.
- Higher-risk residential projects still depend on complete, coordinated submissions before construction can begin.
The Building Safety Regulator approved more than 12,000 housing units through Gateway 2 over a 12-week period, indicating that the higher-risk building approval process is beginning to move after prolonged concern over delays.
The regulator’s latest data shows that 323 Gateway 2 decisions were made in the 12 weeks to 1 May, covering 17,046 housing units. Of those, 12,299 units were approved, producing a 71% approval rate across the reporting period.
Gateway 2 approval is required before construction work can begin on higher-risk buildings. The regime applies to residential buildings of at least 18 metres or seven storeys with two or more residential units, as well as relevant hospitals and care homes. It was introduced under the Building Safety Act framework to strengthen regulatory control before construction starts.
The approval data follows a period in which high-rise residential projects have faced uncertainty over programme planning, design coordination, and regulatory submission quality. Delays at Gateway 2 have affected the ability of schemes to move from design and procurement into live construction, with knock-on effects for mobilisation, subcontractor scheduling, preliminaries, and client funding assumptions.
The latest figures indicate that operational changes are starting to feed through. The regulator has reduced the number of long-running legacy cases and has been using batching to move some new-build cases through early assessment more quickly. London continued to account for a large share of recent decisions, reflecting the concentration of high-rise residential schemes in the capital.
Gateway 2 now sits directly on the critical path for affected projects. A scheme cannot proceed to construction until the building control application has been approved, and the submission must demonstrate that the proposed works meet building regulations. Incomplete or poorly coordinated applications can still be rejected or invalidated, particularly where safety case material, fire strategy, product selection, or change control is insufficiently evidenced.
The regime has changed the shape of pre-construction work. Design teams, contractors, consultants, and clients are being pulled into earlier and more detailed compliance discussions, especially on buildability, sequencing, fire performance, structural coordination, and the evidence trail behind key design decisions. Gateway 2 is no longer a late administrative stage; it is a central delivery gate.
The improvement comes as housing delivery remains under pressure from weak viability, higher remediation obligations, planning uncertainty, insurance scrutiny, and construction cost inflation. High-rise residential schemes are a major component of urban housing supply, but the regulatory environment has made delivery more demanding and more evidence-heavy.
Faster determinations should help release some stalled capacity, although the process remains dependent on the quality of applications entering the system. The sector is unlikely to return to previous approval assumptions. Higher-risk building work now requires earlier technical coordination, clearer accountability, and a stronger audit trail before construction starts.
