Richard Tice also admits sacking of former housing spokesperson Simon Dudley after Grenfell comments was a ‘fiasco’
The deputy leader of Reform has suggested his party could abolish gateway 1, the building safety checkpoint needed for high-rise buildings at planning consent stage.
Richard Tice, who said he was effectively acting as the party’s housing spokesperson following the sacking of Simon Dudley last month, said the UK needed to “apply some common sense” to the building safety regulatory regime.
Gateway 1 requires developers to pass a series of fire safety checks before a residential building above 18m in height can be granted planning permission and is the first of three checkpoints needed before a building can be occupied.
But Tice, a former property developer, told Building that the requirement is an unnecessary burden on developers because it is effectively replicated by gateway 2, the checkpoint needed before construction of a high-rise scheme can begin.
Speaking at UKREiiF, he described the current Building Safety Regulator (BSR) as “well intentioned, the right thing to do, but gateway 1 is replicated by gateway 2. We don’t need gateway 1.[It’s] Over-gold-plating stuff when you don’t need to.”
He added: “Smart and safe is obviously vital in all walks of life, including buildings. But it’s when you overdo it, and when you don’t apply common sense,” Tice said.
Dudley, Reform’s former housing spokesperson, was sacked at the beginning of April just three weeks into the job after he called the Grenfell Tower fire a “tragedy” but added that “everyone dies in the end”.
In a round of interviews following his appointment, Dudley criticised the post-Grenfell regulatory regime and said the “pendulum had swung too far” on building safety, blaming too much regulation for stifling the development of high-rise housing.
Tice admitted that Dudley’s comments and his subsequent dismissal had been a “fiasco” but “stuff happens”, adding that the former Homes England chair and Conservative council leader “had a lot of expertise”.
Earlier, Tice spoke at a fireside chat event at UKREiiF where he outlined his vision to “reset” the planning system should his party win power at the next general election.
The former Reform leader, who handed the reins to Nigel Farage in 2024, said the UK had “got ourselves in a terrible pickle, where [getting planning approval] costs way too much money, it takes way too long”.
“At best it’s slowing things down, at worst it’s preventing a whole load of schemes from happening, and candidly, many of our town centres in their hundreds are at a state of basically emergency,” he added.
Tice suggested the party could simplify the planning application process to require less detailed drawings and separate the conditions process from councils, describing the current system as “so dysfunctional”.
“You can’t just tinker at the edges,” he said. “I’m old enough to remember when I got planning consent literally with a couple of drawings, an outline planning consent with a red line around the site, 50 units, 10 weeks, 10 grand. Now that would cost you a couple of 100 grand, if not 300 grand, and it would take you 10 months if you’re lucky.”
He added: “What you’ve got to do is create tax incentives to encourage the private sector to take some risks, I mean, proper tax incentives, sort of things that you see in the US, and, and that’s what we’re very focused on.”
Tice also reiterated Reform’s opposition to the requirement for heat pumps in new homes, saying: “Why are we forcing all these homes to put in a £15,000 to £20,000 pound heat pump, when you can put in a perfectly good £4,000 pound boiler?”
He added: “If someone wants to put in a heat pump, all power to your elbow, but that should be your choice. It shouldn’t be a forced government decision, and there’s a whole bunch of stuff around that, which we’ve just got badly wrong.”
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