The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) has reported its highest monthly volume of Gateway 2 determinations to date, marking a significant acceleration in high-rise residential building control activity.
According to the latest update, a record 272 decisions were made in October, with London accounting for 76% of all determinations.
Overall, 73% of determinations during October were approved, with many using the ‘approval with requirements’ route.
Between August and November, 40 historic applications were closed, while a further 167 new-build applications – comprising 36,023 housing units across England – are currently progressing through the system.
In the update, BSR added that up to 24 November, a further nine historic determinations have been made and assessed as ready for ‘approval with requirements’.
The majority of the remaining 54 historic applications are still projected to be processed by the new year.
Pilot operational changes
The regulator is continuing to implement its new batching process launched in September. BSR said the pilot process has helped to scale capacity by “bundling applications to specialised engineering services suppliers for accelerated assessment”.
To date, mixed-category bundles, covering 217 new-build and remediation cases, have been successfully dispatched.
BSR is also now developing a plan to take the lessons recently learned and implement them across remediation cases next year.
Charlie Pugsley, BSR’s chief executive officer, said: “The immediate, positive results we saw from our pilot operational changes have established a strong foundation for continued success.
“We are on track to continue to clear the majority of historic cases by the end of December by engaging with applicants and our regulatory partners, seeing the benefits of our new batching system, and building upon the initial hard work of the Innovation Unit.
“Across BSR, there is a confidence that projected milestones remain achievable, but rightly we remain cautiously optimistic.”
