Gateway 2 is twice as fast as it was, and still 22 weeks. That is a cost, not a delay

The regulator has halved its median decision time on new build applications in a year. It is a genuine improvement, and it still puts 5 months between a finished design and a spade in the ground. Very few appraisals we see have priced it.

The Building Safety Regulator publishes its application data quarterly. The figures for May to July 2026 are worth reading properly, because they are better than the reputation and worse than most programmes assume.

The numbers

For new higher-risk buildings and conversions, the median time to a decision is now 22 weeks, and 91% of decisions were approvals. A year earlier, in August 2025, the same measures stood at 43 weeks and 39%. That is a halving of the wait and a near doubling of the success rate, and the regulator deserves the credit for it.

The rest of the picture is less comfortable. Remediation applications run at a median of 34 weeks, internal works at 32. There were 1,547 applications in progress at the end of July, a figure that has only just started to fall.

Why this belongs in the cost plan and not the risk register

22 weeks is not a risk. It is an event that happens to almost every higher-risk scheme, with a known central value. Treating it as a contingency item is how it ends up unfunded.

Over that period you are carrying three things. Finance on the land, which is running whether or not anyone is on site. Tender price inflation between the date your prices were put together and the date work actually starts. And, on a scheme where the contractor is already appointed, whatever the preliminaries and standing time arrangement says.

On a £20m project, a delay of 22-weeks could cost the project circa £250,000 in inflation (based on 3% p.a.), plus interest costs on the development facility, which will vary dependent on how much of it has been utilised to reach Gateway 2; this could be in the order of £50,000 in additional interest, assuming 10% of a loan has been drawn based on a 65% LTV at an interest rate of 8% APR.

The approval rate matters as much as the time. At 39% approval, a rejection was the base case and a resubmission has to be assumed. At 91% it is the exception, which means the sensible allowance has shifted from two cycles to one. That is a cost reduction, and it should be showing up in appraisals written this autumn. It generally is not.

It now interacts with Part L

There is a second reason to care about the date. For higher-risk buildings, a valid Gateway 2 application before 24 September 2027 is what allows a scheme to complete under the 2021 Part L rather than the Future Homes Standard. A 22-week median, on an application that has to be right the first time, means that deadline is a 2026 planning matter rather than a 2027 one.

What this means for your scheme

• Put 22 weeks in the programme for a new build higher-risk scheme, and price the finance and inflation that sit across it.

• Allow one cycle, not two. The approval rate no longer supports a resubmission as the base case.

• Remediation and internal works are still running at 32 to 34 weeks. Do not use the new build figure for those costs.

• If Part L transitional protection matters to you, work back from 24 September 2027 and add the 22 weeks.

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Sources. Building Safety Regulator, building control approval application data, May to July 2026, published on GOV.UK. Comparative figures for August 2025 from the same series.