Building Safety

Gateway 2 approvals hit 82% as delays keep falling

By Staff Writer  |  7 August 2026

The Building Safety Regulator approved 82 per cent of higher-risk building applications in the 12 weeks to 1 August, with new build decision times cut from 43 weeks a year ago to 22.

The regulator published its latest gateway 2 transparency data on 5 August 2026, covering the rolling 12-week period. It made 349 building control decisions across all higher-risk building categories, approving 287 of them.

New higher-risk buildings and conversions were approved at 91 per cent, excluding invalidations and withdrawals, with a median approval time of 22 weeks. In London the approval rate for that category stood at 93 per cent on a 23-week median.

In the equivalent 12 weeks to August 2025 the new build approval rate was 39 per cent and the median approval time 43 weeks.

Where the volume sits

Forty-five new build decisions were made over the period, representing 7,587 residential units. London accounted for 27 of them, of which 25 were approved, covering 3,841 units. The capital now represents 65 per cent of all in-progress new build applications and 58 per cent of the units under assessment. Nationally the regulator is managing 131 live new build and conversion applications covering 30,421 units.

Remediation of existing buildings was approved at 85 per cent nationally, against an annual target of 65 per cent, and 92 per cent in London. Of 110 remediation decisions, the approved schemes covered 7,433 units. Legacy applications carried over from 2024 have fallen to 13, down from 42 at the start of the year.

Applications submitted during 2026 are moving faster than the headline medians suggest. Remediation cases lodged this year show a median determination time of 21 weeks, against 34 weeks for the older caseload still being cleared.

The internal works bottleneck

Internal refurbishment sits behind the rest. Category A and B internal works were approved at 77 per cent with a median determination time of 32 weeks, though 2026 submissions are running at 16 weeks. Those applications account for roughly 49 per cent of all gateway 2 decisions and 981 active cases.

Gateway 3 is beginning to show a pattern. No new build project through gateway 2 has yet reached it. Of 319 gateway 3 applications received, 235 are internal refurbishments, with 47 transitional cases and 23 NHS internal refurbishments making up most of the remainder. Twenty-nine were determined over the 12 weeks, approved at 72 per cent on a 16-week median, the quickest at eight weeks.

NHS applications, now tracked separately, were approved at 84 per cent nationally, 16 from 19 decisions, on a 24-week median. The regulator has expanded to 176 internal staff supported by 506 external specialists, including 221 registered building inspectors and 135 structural engineers.

We will never allow faster decision-making to compromise the safety of the people who will live, visit and work in these buildings.

Charlie Pugsley, Acting Chief Executive of the Building Safety Regulator

For programme planning the message is narrower than the headline. Application quality is doing much of the work, and the projects still waiting are the ones that arrived with gaps in them.