The British Property Federation (BPF) has called for a “new approach” to resourcing at the Building Safety Regulator, as the current backlog is leading to a two-year delay on applications
The BPF has estimated that legal teams are spending 12,000 working days annually chasing applications lost in the building safety backlog, with many schemes being abandoned altogether.
The Building Safety Regulator celebrated its first birthday in November 2024, but its impact on the industry has been somewhat sluggish. It recently emerged that high-rise residential schemes were facing delays of up to two years, largely caused by the BSR’s outsourcing model. The organisation does not employ in-house technical staff.
The BSR set out an initial approval timeline of 12 weeks for applications, but is currently averaging 22 weeks instead.
The building safety backlog is endangering business in the sector
The BPF argued that delays of 18-24 months are burdening investors “who no longer have an economic interest in a building with unnecessary legal commitments and is preventing new owners from taking full control of a building and making productive use of it”.
Due to a further lack of capacity in the private sector and strained local authorities, building control approvals are being slowed down across the board. Even the BSR’s head of operations, planning and building control Andrew Moore admitted the approach “isn’t working as we’d hoped”.
The BPF is calling on chancellor Rachel Reeves to act at next month’s spending review by providing “additional resource” to enable the sector to resolve the building safety backlog. To do otherwise, the BPF said, would run “counter to the urgent need for new homes”.
The BPF warned that the government will not reach the 1.5m new homes target without reform
BPF chief executive Melanie Leech said the government’s reforms to the planning system will not deliver homes, infrastructure and growth without the regulatory and planning system being “made more efficient and adequately resourced”.
She added: “To unlock the billions of pounds of investment needed to build more homes, employment spaces, infrastructure and to support improvements in key public services such as the NHS, we need the Government to create a supportive fiscal and regulatory environment that will give the real estate sector the confidence to take long-term investment decisions.
“That requires a new smarter approach to regulation and ensuring that it is properly resourced.”
The BPF also called for the government to fund an additional 300 planning officers to meet the number promised by ministers in last year’s autumn budget to help speed up approvals.
The organisation also called for stamp duty relief for multiple dwellings to be reinstated and for a 10-year rent settlement to support private investment in affordable residential schemes over the next five years.
