The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) has released its latest building control Gateway 2 update, demonstrating a continued positive momentum and consistency across application processes for new high-rise residential buildings.
A record 272 decisions across all application types were made to 24 November and 578 since 31 August 2025.
Seventy-six per cent of all decisions (206) across all Gateway 2 categories during October related to London cases, making it 409 decisions since August in the capital.
A further 40 historic applications submitted under the previous model were closed between 31 August and 24 November, with 20 of these recent decisions relating to London cases.
A minimum of nine further applications have now also been assessed as ready for the recently enhanced ‘approval with requirements’ route, subject to final checks and agreement from the applicants.
The majority of the remaining 54 previous model applications are projected to follow by the new year.
BSR’s Operational Team’s direct engagement with applicants and regulatory partners, along with its ongoing plan to address individual ‘blockers’ continues to see cases closed at a significant rate.
The regulator is also continuing to implement the new batching process launched in September. This new pilot process scales capacity by bundling applications to specialised engineering services suppliers for accelerated assessment.
To date mixed-category bundles, covering 217 new build and remediation cases, have been successfully dispatched, with a continued weekly dispatch based on supplier capacity.
BSR is also now developing a focused plan to extend the lessons recently learned to its remediation cases in the new year.
The recently established Innovation Unit (IU), a dedicated team of registered building inspectors (RBIs) and technical engineers, is currently managing 73 live new build applications.
The unit is demonstrating progress in processing times with rapid validation and rejection of incomplete applications which enables applicants to quickly address issues and resubmit.
The early cohort of applications are now being expedited to resolve outstanding technical issues with first approvals expected during December.
Charlie Pugsley, Chief Executive Officer of the Building Safety Regulator, said: 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.”
