Three quarters of high rise housing schemes still being refused for pre-construction approval
The chief executive of Homes England has called on the government to fix delays at the 星空传媒 Safety Regulator (BSR) as he described gateway 2 approvals as 鈥渦nacceptably slow鈥�.
Eamonn Boylan told 星空传媒 at the UKREiiF conference that widespread hold ups on high rise housing schemes caused partly by a lack of resources at the regulator was 鈥渟omething that the government needs to resolve鈥�.
Around 75% of applications for higher risk schemes, which includes residential buildings above 18 metres, are still being turned back by the regulator at the gateway 2 stage for pre-construction approval.
The regulator recently said the delays, which are causing turmoil in the residential sector, were caused largely by flawed or incomplete applications and blamed a lack of design expertise in the industry for a failure to adjust to stricter fire safety rules.
But industry professionals have pointed to a lack of clear guidance from the regulator while the regulator鈥檚 own head of building control admitted in February that an outsourcing model for technical teams had slowed down approvals.
Boylan said many of the conversations he had been having with developers at this week鈥檚 UKREiiF conference in Leeds had focused on the delays.
However, he believed support in the industry for the new regulatory regime, which has sought to prevent a repeat of the Grenfell Tower fire which killed 72 people in 2017, remained strong.
鈥淚鈥檝e yet to meet a developer who believes that the regulatory regime around building safety, the regulations themselves, are unreasonable,鈥� he said.
鈥淲hat they鈥檙e complaining about is the speed at which decisions are being taken, which in some cases, admittedly, is unacceptably slow.鈥�
He added: 鈥淐learly, there鈥檚 an issue there that needs to be fixed.鈥�
>>See also: What the delays at the 星空传媒 Safety Regulator mean for high-rise development
The government has insisted it is exploring 鈥渁ll possible options鈥� with the regulator to ensure it can deal with high volumes of applications.
In a written statement to parliament earlier this month building safety minister Alex Norris said that the BSR was conducting a 鈥渟ystematic review鈥� of all building safety guidance and service content to 鈥渋dentify where improvements are needed鈥�.
He also promised that the benefits of additional funding for the BSR provided by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government would 鈥渟cale up in the coming months.鈥�
Last week the House of Commons鈥� housing, communities and local government committee wrote to the housing secretary and building safety minister calling for the delays to be 鈥渁ddressed as a priority鈥�.
The committee added it was 鈥渃lear that improvements need to be made both to the operating efficacy of the Regulator, as well as the quality of building control applications which are submitted for its review鈥�.
No comments yet