The building safety regime is commonly described through three gateways. Planning gateway one predates the Building Safety Act 2022; the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) is the building-control authority for higher-risk buildings at Gateways 2 and 3:
| Gateway | What it is | In force since |
|---|---|---|
| Gateway 1 | Planning-stage fire-safety review: a fire statement submitted with the planning application. | August 2021 |
| Gateway 2 | Building-control approval before construction or relevant works begin. This is the subject of this article. | October 2023 |
| Gateway 3 | Completion certificate before the building is handed over and occupied. | October 2023 |
Gateway 2 is the decisive commercial gate: it is the point at which a project that has planning, funding and a procurement route in place can still be lawfully prevented from breaking ground.
Gateway 2 applies to work on higher-risk buildings as defined by the Higher-Risk Buildings (Descriptions and Supplementary Provisions) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/275). In outline, an HRB is a building in England that is:
Gateway 2 is triggered not only by new construction but also by work to an existing HRB and by change-of-use work that turns a building into an HRB. Check the exemptions and transitional provisions for the particular work; not every repair requires an application.
Under the Building (Higher-Risk Buildings Procedures) (England) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/909), the client must:
Applications are submitted electronically. Follow the current BSR application guidance for the required information and file-upload instructions. A new HRB application includes:
| Component | What it demonstrates |
|---|---|
| Full plans, specifications & schedules | Architectural drawings, site location plan, schedule of proposed works — aligned to the functional requirements of Schedule 1 to the Building Regulations. |
| Competence declaration | The client's statement that the principal designer and principal contractor are competent, and how the client satisfied itself of that. |
| Construction control plan | How compliance will be managed, monitored and evidenced during construction. |
| Change control plan | How changes after approval will be assessed and managed (controlled changes are major, notifiable or recordable). |
| Building Regulations compliance statement | How each aspect of the design meets the functional requirements — including the standards adopted, why they were chosen, and how they apply. |
| Fire and emergency file | Fire prevention, detection, suppression and evacuation strategy for the occupied building. |
| Mandatory occurrence reporting plan | Protocols for reporting significant safety issues during design and construction. |
| Dutyholder information & statement of application | Identity of dutyholders; client-signed confirmation that the application is correct (or proof of authorisation if someone submits on the client's behalf). |
| Reference file & document management | A named, described index of every file. Follow the current BSR instructions for file formats, size limits, names and upload order. |
The CLC guidance additionally recommends — and experienced teams now routinely include — an Application Information Schedule, an Application Folder Structure and Contents Schedule, a project brief and an application strategy. None of these are statutory, but they are how navigable applications get navigated.
The assessment period is 12 weeks for new HRBs and 8 weeks for existing HRBs, unless an extension is agreed. Queries can create programme risk; do not assume an automatic statutory clock pause or a fixed delay for each query.
| Application category | Decisions | Approval rate (of decisions; excludes invalid and withdrawn applications) | Median approval time | Invalid or withdrawn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New HRBs & conversions | 45 | 91% | 22 weeks | 15 |
| External remediation | 110 | 85% | 34 weeks | 19 |
| Internal refurbishment | 166 | 77% | 32 weeks | 257 |
| NHS applications | 19 | 84% | 24 weeks | 9 |
For context: in the equivalent 12-week window to August 2025, new-build approval was 39% with a median of 43 weeks. The improvement is real — but note that even a "successful" new-build application took nearly double the statutory period, and the internal-works category still generated more invalid/withdrawn applications (257) than decisions (166).
The works, as described in the application, may proceed once any pre-commencement requirements are met and the notice of intention to start work at least five working days beforehand is served.
Where some details are not reasonably capable of being finalised pre-construction, the BSR may grant approval subject to a schedule of further details to be submitted and approved before defined stages. This is a useful mechanism — but each staged submission carries its own review cycle and its own failure risk.
An application can be refused on substance, invalidated at the door (missing components, format failures, wrong applicant), or withdrawn by the applicant — for reasons not identified in the aggregate data. A new submission requires a new assessment. Withdrawn and invalid applications are the hidden iceberg in BSR statistics: in internal works alone, they outnumbered decisions by roughly 3:2 in mid-2026.
For complex, multi-tower or phased schemes, the BSR's published guidance recommends engaging at least in advance of submission for staged applications.
The BSR's assessment turns on whether the application demonstrates that the works, when complete, will satisfy all applicable functional requirements of the Building Regulations — and that construction will be managed so the building is built as described. It therefore examines not just drawings but the statements about the drawings: compliance statements, control plans, and competence evidence. Applications can fail where those layers contradict each other or lack evidential support — a subject covered in detail in our companion article, Why Gateway 2 applications fail.
The client (developer) is the applicant, but may authorise another dutyholder — typically the principal designer or principal contractor — to submit on their behalf. Written proof of that authorisation must be uploaded, and the client still signs the statement confirming the application's accuracy.
The application itself carries BSR application fees, but the dominant cost is the professional time to assemble a submission-quality pack across a multi-disciplinary team — and the holding costs of any delay, which dwarf the fee. See our cost-of-delay analysis.
Only works outside the scope of the approved HRB works, and only with careful legal advice. Starting the HRB works themselves before approval is prohibited and enforceable.
A refusal cannot be repaired through post-approval change control. Follow the decision letter: a review and subsequent appeal may be available. If submitting a new application, address the stated reasons for refusal.
The regime described here applies to England. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have separate building-control systems.
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Discuss a readiness review →This article is general guidance and not legal or building-control advice. Regulatory references reflect the position at 13 September 2026.