Sarah Rock comments on the latest problems caused by the Building Safety Regulator and Gateway Two
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With many schemes caught up in Gateway Two delays, the construction industry is beginning to stagnate.
Sarah says this is starting to have severe repercussions.
“It’s going to really impact the housing crisis and the construction industry. Investors are already slightly nervous. It’s also going to lead, sadly, to more litigation in the construction world because the question is: who takes on the risk of delays?”
“I think the regulator is saying that 16 to 18 weeks is the average [time to wait], but some applications have been in the system for a year.”
“Redundancies are already happening [due to delays]. People are losing their jobs because projects are stalling. Investment is falling away and people just aren’t building high-risk buildings [HRBs].”
“I think developers are going in slightly blind about what to provide, when the regulator argues that they’re not going to tell you how to design [the scheme], but in order to pass the gateway, you’ve got to provide what the regulator wants.”
“There needs to be more clarity for applicants on what is a sufficient design and what interpretation the regulator needs,”. This clarity is needed “before the application discussion, with an applicant, maybe for the first time, able to say to the regulator: ‘OK, I’m going to build X, what explanation do you need about how we’re building it to [building] codes?’”
“If they could just bring in a piece of secondary legislation detailing what the regulators should be doing, and saying that it should release its performance data and have [better] engagement with industry, that could be a potential solution.”
“Maybe we need to have conditional approvals, because that means you could get started on site. It prevents that huge delay. I think there needs to be a bit of a sea change at the regulator; otherwise, it’s just going to get worse.”
This article including further thoughts from Sarah was first published by Property Week in June 2025 and sits behind a paywall.
