Barely 10% of building safety gateway 2 submissions for new builds have been approved, latest figures say

The number of building safety applications for new build schemes approved at gateway 2 level stage is barely above 10%, new data has revealed.

According to figures provided through a Freedom of Information request from cost consultant and project manager Cast, just 20 applications out of 187 submitted had been given approval – meaning the percentage of those getting the green light is 10.7%.

As part of the Building Safety Act, three new safety checks, known as “gateways”, for all new high-risk buildings – defined as 18m or at least seven storeys tall – have to be signed off by the Building Safety Regulator (BSR).

The first check is before planning consent, a second one before construction can start, known as gateway 2, and then a final check at delivery just before the building can be occupied which is called gateway 3.

Cast’s figures, which cover the period from when the gateway checks came into force in October 2023 to the end of last month, said that on top of the 20 applications approved, a further 18 had been rejected – meaning the status of 149 was unknown.

The figures, supplied by the Health and Safety Executive, which runs the initiative, also show that 2,049 applications had been made for work to existing high risk buildings with 393 – the equivalent of 19% – having been approved. A further 191 had been rejected meaning the status of 1,465 was unknown.

And, according to Cast’s own assumptions, the average cost of getting an approved application at gateway 2 level was £27,666, with the highest cost coming in at £83,449.

The figures said the average cost of a rejected gateway 2 application was £12,957 while the highest cost of a rejected gateway 2 application was £26,168.

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For existing higher risk buildings, the average cost of getting an approved application at gateway 2 level was £6,001 while the average cost of a rejected application was £4,763.

Cast said the highest cost of an approved application in this category was £33,792, while the highest cost of a rejected gateway 2 application was £19,627.

Cast’s FOI request also included data about gateway 3 applications with seven made during the period – and none approved or rejected. It said 80 applications for work to existing higher risk buildings had been submitted with 15 approved and none rejected – meaning the status of 65 was still up in the air.

Data for the cost of submitting gateway 3 applications for new builds was not available with Cast estimating that the average cost of submitting a gateway 3 application for work to an existing building was £2,674.

Cast chief operating officer Lilly Gallafent said she believed that “personally it [gateway 2 and 3] is the biggest issue [in construction] right now”.

Asked why the firm had submitted an FOI request, she added: “We are a project and cost management business and we wanted more up-to-date data. Currently the only way to do this is through an FOI. We believe in what [the BSA] is trying to achieve but we do have a problem. It’s not working effectively.”

And she said of the number of talking points thrown up by the data, perhaps the biggest was the amount of time it was taking to get decisions made. “The most critical issue remains the timeline to approval (the BSR advised that for Gateway 2 this was on average 16 to 18 weeks as of May 25, but we are still seeing this take longer) and the lack of certainty this creates in programming and project planning and modelling.”

Last month, the BSR said it was looking at taking a “firmer approach” by rejecting more gateway 2 applications outright as it seeks to decrease delays in building control approval.

Philip White, chief inspector of buildings at the BSR, said “industry needs to step up and comply with the process” in providing good quality applications.

“The time we spend on those incomplete applications is time we can’t spend on others, some of which would be perfectly good to go,” he said.

He said a shift in method could mean the regulator takes a “firmer approach to rejecting those applications that aren’t making the bar straight away”.