Building Safety Regulator makes dent in gateway 2 backlog

The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) has made progress on its application backlog after almost halving legacy cases in 12 weeks, new data has shown⁽¹⁾.

Figures published by the Health and Safety Executive, acting as the current BSR, confirmed that live legacy cases fell by 40 between 1 September and 24 November 2025 with 63 in the system at the time of the last recording.

BSR data also show the impact of process reforms announced this year after a record 272 application decisions were made in October 2025, taking the total for the above 12-week period to 578.

The applications, which seek building control approval to pass the stop/go point known as gateway 2, are a statutory requirement for work on higher-risk buildings (HRBs).

They are used by the BSR to assess compliance with building regulations, project management due diligence and the competency of project teams⁽²⁾.

Dr David Crosthwaite, chief economist at BCIS, said: ‘Finally, some good news for construction. After a pretty disappointing Budget, progress in BSR processing is to be celebrated given the significant cost pressures that decision-making delays have created for the industry, and particularly for residential developers.

‘The BSR’s not out of the woods yet though. Its reforms are clearly working but there remains a significant number of cases to shift if it’s to hit its self-imposed deadline of clearing the backlog by the end of January 2026.’

The latest data show that as of 24 November, there were 1,133 live cases across all application types in the BSR’s system.

This was five fewer than the number at the end of the first week in September – the starting point for this dataset.

^{Source: Health and Safety Executive – Building control approval application data August to November 2025}

The data also show the number of new cases added and decisions made each week between September and 24 November.

On average, 48 decisions were made per week with 50 new cases added to the system.

Application types

There were 167 live applications for new build work on HRBs as of 24 November. This was 15 more than the number recorded at the start of October when the BSR last published gateway 2 data.

The majority of new build cases are now managed by the BSR’s new Innovation Unit (IU).

This has changed since the last data release when most new build applications (91 of 152) were being processed under the legacy multidisciplinary teams (MDT) model – the IU’s predecessor.

This shift contributed to the quadrupling of the IU’s caseload between September and November.

Live applications for remediation work on HRBs stood at 283 by 24 November, climbing from 262 at the start of September. A centralised Remediation Unit, adjacent to the IU, is in the works to speed up decision-making on these applications.

The latest insight from the BSR follows the initial publication of HRB applications data in July this year.

Between 1Q2024 and 1Q2025, delayed decisions on HRB applications in England rose by 443%. More than half the BSR caseload in the first quarter of this year also comprised outstanding applications from previous quarters.

In June, the government announced a raft of reforms to tackle gateway 2 delays.

These include investment in more staff, the new fast-tracking process and leadership changes with the BSR due to separate from the HSE and become an independent public body in January 2026.

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^{(1) GOV.UK – Building Safety Regulator building control approval application data August to November 2025- here}

^{(2) GOV.UK – Building control approval for higher-risk buildings – here}