The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) was established to raise the standard of design, construction and management for higher-risk buildings in England in the wake of Grenfell. Its Gateway approval process is intended to ensure fire and structural safety is embedded before works proceed. However, the recent House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee report has concluded that delays in BSR approvals – particularly at Gateway 2 – are “unacceptable,” with serious implications for remediation programs and housing delivery.

We previously provided our insight into the Parliamentary Scrutiny  back in July 2025 when considering BSR reform proposals, and have also recently explained how to successfully apply for Gateway 2.,

This article develops on our previous commentary by exploring the conclusions drawn by the Committee, what they mean for the industry and how you can manage the legal and commercial risks arising from these delays.

The current state of Gateway 2 applications

The BSR’s statutory target for Gateway 2 decisions is 12 weeks, yet stakeholders report routine delays of more than nine months for high-rise projects, leaving schemes in limbo and creating significant schedule risk. The Committee was unequivocal in its criticism. As Chair Baroness Taylor warned: “The scale of the delays caused by the BSR has stretched far beyond the regulator’s statutory timelines for building control decisions. This is unacceptable.”

These delays don’t just frustrate developers – they jeopardise the Government’s ambition to deliver 1.5 million homes by 2029, directly affecting pipeline certainty for residential developers, registered providers (RPs), and funders.

Recent reports highlight the growing backlog of applications and the strain on multidisciplinary teams (MDTs). Meanwhile, remediation stalls, leaving unsafe cladding in place and driving up costs for leaseholders – undermining both safety and fairness objectives of the regime.

Why are BSR decisions taking so long?

There are four main structural causes which are essential to understand in order to manage risk:

1. Insufficiently clear guidance to applicants. Applicants report that the BSR has not provided consistent guidance on how to demonstrate building safety, leading to refusals or repeated requests for further information; many applications falter on “basic errors” around how fire and structural risks are evidenced.
2. Skills shortages and an ageing workforce. MDT capacity is constrained by a shortage of qualified building and fire inspectors, compounded by long-standing local authority resourcing challenges and demographic trends.
3. Scope creep to minor works. Smaller projects – such as bathroom refurbishments in high‑rise buildings – are still being channelled through the BSR’s MDTs, magnifying the queue for complex, high-risk schemes that genuinely require intensive scrutiny.
4. Product regulation gaps. The Committee notes that many construction products lack applicable standards, which intensifies the burden on applicants to justify material selections and on the regulator to assess safety without a settled benchmark.

What are the legal and commercial implications?

Beyond operational inconvenience, these delays create significant legal and financial risks. Below are the key areas where you’re most exposed:

• Delay risk under contracts: Extended BSR decision cycles can trigger liquidated damages, prolong preliminaries, and inflate financing costs. They also disrupt downstream procurement and design coordination, challenging NEC and JCT programmes and risk allocation.
• Conditionality in funding and development agreements. Funders increasingly condition drawdowns or long‑stop dates on regulatory milestones (including Gateway approvals), so BSR lag can create default scenarios or renegotiations on price, security, and covenant packages.
• Regulatory compliance uncertainty. Without consistent guidance, applicants face iterative submissions and shifting evidential expectations – heightening the risk of abortive costs and professional liability exposures for designers and fire engineers.
• Leaseholder cost recovery and disputes. Where remediation is delayed, leaseholders face ongoing service charge and safety‑related expenditures, feeding claims pressure and reputational risk for developers and freeholders. The Committee’s call for differentiated charging regimes (new builds vs. occupied buildings) may become a policy lever to ease occupant burdens.
• Product selection and specification risk. In the absence of standards for certain products, developers should expect deeper scrutiny and longer evidential trails, necessitating robust manufacturer documentation, fire testing data, and traceability.

What the Lords’ Committee recommends

The Committee has proposed several measures to tackle these delays:

• Streamlining minor works. The Committee recommends removing smaller works from the BSR’s building control approval processes – or at least establishing a simplified, faster pathway – so MDTs can focus on higher-risk schemes.
• Improving consistency across MDTs. Clear guidance to MDTs on evidencing and assessing compliance is urged, along with grouping similar building types or repeat developers with the same teams to reduce variance and accelerate decisions.
• Investing in inspector capacity. Long‑term funding is proposed to recruit and train building and fire inspectors, with caution around fee increases: any hike should be tightly linked to measurable performance improvements.
• Sequencing broader reforms pragmatically. Peers suggest delaying more ambitious regulatory consolidations until BSR meets statutory timeframes, ensuring the core approval function stabilises before further system changes.

Practical strategies: How to navigate the Gateway Regime in the current climate

Despite the uncertainty, here are some proactive steps you can take now to mitigate risk and keep projects moving:

 A. Front‑load engagement and evidence

• Pre‑application dialogue: Engage proactively with the BSR/MDT to agree evidential expectations, drawing on lessons from recent refusals and RFI patterns.
• Document quality: Eliminate “basic errors” by running internal compliance reviews (legal + technical) on fire strategy, structural robustness, and competence declarations before submission.
• Utilise guidance resource: the sector is not seeking to tackle some of the issues which are causing delay directly noting that the CLC has released a series of guidance notes to support developers and contractors with progressing successfully through the Gateway framework accessible here.

B. Incorporate contractual protections for regulatory delay

• Relief events and extensions of time: Expressly recognise Gateway‑related delays in contracts, distinguishing between contractor‑caused delay and regulatory‑system delay; calibrate LDs to exclude periods attributable to BSR processing.
• Long‑stop and termination provisions: In development/funding agreements, build realistic long‑stops keyed to actual BSR performance and include renegotiation triggers rather than hard termination where approvals exceed statutory targets.

C. Prepare evidence‑ready design and product governance

• Product scrutiny: Where standards are absent or evolving, assemble full technical dossiers (test reports, classification, installation details, maintenance regimes) and record competence of the supply chain.
• Design iteration planning: Allow for regulatory feedback cycles in programmes, with contingency design hours and budgeted back‑and‑forth to avoid disputes over scope change.

D. Adopt portfolio‑level tactics

• Repeat‑team efficiency: Where possible, channel similar projects through the same MDTs to benefit from learning and consistency – an approach the Committee encourages the BSR to adopt.
• Minor works triage: If policy shifts remove minor high‑rise works from full MDT processing, seize fast‑track routes immediately; until then, establish internal triage to isolate minor scopes and prepare lighter‑touch evidence packs.

E. Implement leaseholder-focused measures for transparency and cost control

• Transparency on remediation timelines: Provide frequent, documented updates to residents and managing agents explaining how BSR processes affect start dates and sequencing.
• Charging regime vigilance: Monitor proposals to differentiate BSR fees between new builds and occupied buildings; anticipate how this could impact budgets and cost recovery strategies.

What might change next – and how you can prepare

Change is already afoot with the BSR subject to a new leadership team and proposed reforms as confirming in June 2026. Looking ahead, more policy and regulatory adjustments are likely. Here’s what to expect and how to position your business for these changes:

• Policy movement on minor works and fees. The Committee’s strong steer on removing or streamlining smaller works is likely to be high on the Government’s to‑do list; any fee adjustments should be demonstrably tied to performance improvements, with potential for separate charging regimes to shield leaseholders.
• Capacity building. We would expect a renewed emphasis on funding and training for inspectors; for developers, this could mean gradually improving decision times and more consistent feedback, but not overnight. Plan for a transitional period through 2026–2027.
• Product standards trajectory. The Committee’s concern about unregulated products may feed into forthcoming proposals on construction product safety – affecting specification choices, supplier diligence and evidential thresholds at Gateway 2.
• Operational consistency. If the BSR follows the Committee’s recommendation to assign similar projects to the same MDTs, the approval process should become more consistent and predictable. This would allow for the creation of standardised evidence packs and even run practice submissions for each building type, reducing errors and speeding up approvals.

Unacceptable BSR delays demand proactive action

The Lords’ verdict is unequivocal: the delays in BSR approvals are not just disappointing – they are “unacceptable.” The current pace falls far short of statutory expectations and poses a serious threat to both remediation efforts and the delivery of new homes. The answer is not to dilute safety standards but to strengthen the system – by improving evidential quality, focusing regulatory scrutiny on genuinely higher-risk work, and expanding inspector capacity. At the same time, businesses must construct robust contractual and compliance frameworks that can withstand approval uncertainty.

For developers and contractors, success depends on a proactive blend of legal foresight, technical rigor, and transparent stakeholder engagement. That means you should building contracts that anticipate regulatory delays, producing robust fire and structural evidence supported by comprehensive product documentation, and maintaining clear, timely communication with residents, funders, and regulators.

If you act now to embed these strategies, you’ll not only navigate today’s challenges but position themselves as a leader in a safer, more resilient built environment.

How we can help

Whilst there has been much needed change (and evidence of much needed progress) recently within the building safety sector, the critical conclusions of House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee makes the possibility of significant further change in the short and medium term highly likely.

With change comes uncertainty and this can often lead to further complications for developers, contractors funders and resident looking to manoeuvre through an already complex regulatory regime.

Our team of experts can support you through at all stages of this process for delivery of a successful outcome.

If you have any questions about the Building Safety Act or need support, please contact Alex Jones or Inam Hasan.