The Building Safety Regulator may take a “firmer approach” with gateway 2 applications and reject more outright to decrease delays, according to the BSR chief.
The BSR has faced criticism from developers since taking over the building control for higher-risk buildings, which has resulted in delays of up to 11 months for approval at the gateway 2 pre-construction phase.
Philip White, the chief inspector of building for the BSR, said that the “industry needs to step up and comply with the process” by providing quality applications.
The BSR chief suggested that the organisation may change tact in the way it handles poor-quality applications to speed up the process for more complete submissions.
White said that the BSR’s efforts to engage with applicants instead of rejecting submissions had resulted in applications taking longer and appearing to be delayed.
He continued: “Of course, 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.”
White suggested that the BSR may take a “firmer approach to rejecting those applications that aren’t making the bar straight away”.
He went on to say that the BSR had almost cleared the backlog of cases which had built up since last summer, but that it was still grappling with low-quality applications.
White said that the organisation had initially seen “steady” numbers of applications when first taking on building control for higher-risk buildings, but when transitional arrangements from the pre-Building Safety Act regime ended in spring 2024, the situation changed and resulted in a “temporary backlog of cases”.
The BSR chief said that this had now been nearly dealt with and that, while a small number of applications from before July 2024 were still in the system, the average gateway 2 handling time was now down to 16 to 18 weeks.
White called on the industry to “step up and comply with the process” by submitting high-quality applications. Recent data shows that 44% of applications are currently being rejected at the validation stage due to not providing all the required documentation. White said that the process was necessary to prevent “risks and problems from being designed into the built environment”.
He continued: “It’s about making sure residents have safe and quality homes and avoiding costly works at a later date. Or homeowners not being able to secure lending and insurance.”
According to White, the most common failures in applications are a result of missing details in relation to key structural details connecting, a lack of adequate information on the fire resistance of cladding, walls or barriers, poorly-designed smoke extraction systems and corridors that don’t meet the required evacuation widths.
White said that these present “significant safety risks” and result in delays in the approval process.
Source: Showhouse
