Owners of 1,454 high-risk high-rise residential buildings have submitted their safety cases to the Building Safety Regulator (BSR). To date, the BSR has reviewed 170 of these cases, with 125 failing to meet the required safety standards
As a result of these failures, legal notices have been issued to the owners of the non-compliant buildings, requiring them to address the identified safety concerns.
Reasons that a high-rise building may not meet the standards include failure to carry out a proper assessment, to present a full resident engagement strategy, or a requirement for major remedial works for compartmentation or structural issues.
Delayed approval times
Last month, the BSR released their first figures covering activity from the end of 2023 to early 2025, and found that the average wait time for a decision on gateway approval had risen to 36 weeks, or nine months.
The original target for a wait time is 12 weeks, or three months.
Furthermore, the failure rates were also high then, with just 338 of the 2,108 applications in this timeframe receiving approval.
At the time, a HSE statement said: “We acknowledge there are delays in processing applications and we continue to introduce improvements.
“Recent recruitment activity is having a positive impact on productivity with the number of decisions doubling (month on month) overall since March.
“Significantly, the number of decisions made are now exceeding new applications received.
“Dedicated teams are now in place to process new-build and remediation applications, and we are introducing a new Innovation Unit which will focus on fast-tracking new-build applications through the system.”
The Building Safety Regulator
At the start of July, the BSR announced several major reforms in the wake of major criticisms. These reforms include the separation of the BSR from the Health and Safety Executive and the implementation of a new Fast Track Process to speed up the process of reviewing applications.
New experts are also being brought into the BSR so that experienced individuals can more rigorously uphold BSR standards, following criticism that the BSR lacked inspectors or engineers with relevant experience or knowledge.
At the beginning of an inquiry into the BSR approval process, Baroness Taylor of Bolton, chair of the Industry and Regulators Committee, said: “The Committee wants to hear from all stakeholders to find out if the BSR has the skills and resources required to ensure the safety of all buildings and its residents in the process of approving applications for high-rise buildings.
“This is crucial if the Government is going to achieve its manifesto target of building 1.5m homes over the next Parliament.”
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