Gateway 2 backlog tops 40,000 homes as levy deadline hits

Gateway 2 applications covering more than 40,000 homes now await decisions at the Building Safety Regulator, as developers filed 64 new build submissions in September to beat the building safety levy taking effect 1 October.

September's intake nearly doubled August's 34 submissions and ran almost four times July's 17. The end-of-month rush pushed the overall Gateway 2 caseload up by 34 to 1,706 applications, of which 186 are new build and conversion cases. Internal refurbishment accounts for the majority of the remaining work.

New build applications are arriving twice as fast as BSR is determining them, according to the regulator's monthly data.

What drove the September spike?

The 1 October levy start concentrated submissions at the end of the month, before the new charge applied. BSR activated contingency plans to manage the surge and protect projects already in the queue from further delays.

"We will engage with applicants on an individual basis to discuss timelines for their projects," a BSR spokesperson said.

How is the regulator responding?

BSR has added 25 staff to its internal regulatory team over the past four months. It plans further recruitment over the next six to 12 months. Specialist inspection capacity is expanding in parallel, with integrated building inspector posts forecast to rise from 22.4 full-time equivalents at the end of September to 34 by December.

What does the latest approval data show?

BSR cleared 55 of 57 new build decisions over the most recent 12 weeks, a 96.5 percent approval rate. Median approval time edged up from 22 weeks to 23 weeks over the month, which the regulator attributed to clearing older cases from the backlog rather than slowing new work.

Complex applications are tracked separately and carry a median approval time of 34 weeks.

Where else is the system under strain?

Internal refurbishment remains the largest caseload by volume, with 1,109 live applications. BSR expects additional processing capacity to come online in the coming months, though it has not specified volumes.

External remediation shows the opposite trend. Decisions outpaced new applications, and only seven 2024 cases remain — down from 42 at the start of the year. The category has shed roughly five-sixths of its oldest work since January.

BSR has also tightened its pre-rejection checks. "We will only reject applications where there is no realistic prospect of approval within a reasonable timeframe," the regulator said.

What about Gateway 3?

Gateway 3, the next approval stage, is emerging as a separate capacity issue. BSR determined nine applications over the latest 12 weeks, with a median turnaround of 20 weeks. No new build scheme that has cleared Gateway 2 has yet reached Gateway 3, leaving that stage as an untested bottleneck.

BSR expects new processes and the additional staff to shorten determination times across both gateways. With new build submissions still running twice as fast as decisions, the next test for the regulator's expanded teams will be whether post-1 October intake slows enough to let the 1,706-case queue move — and whether the first wave of post-Gateway 2 schemes can clear Gateway 3 before any future levy-driven rush.