Quick answer: BSR’s latest transparency data, covering June to August 2026 and published on 4 September, shows 1,654 Gateway 2 applications in progress — up by more than 100 in August alone — with BSR attributing the rise to the Building Safety Levy coming into force on 1 October 2026. New-build approvals are running at 92% with a 22-week median, but a pre-October application that is rejected and resubmitted after 1 October is liable for the levy. Getting the application right first time has just acquired a price tag.
The surge BSR is expecting
The Building Safety Regulator’s building control approval data for June to August 2026, with figures as of 31 August, opens with a trend note it hasn’t made before: “There has been an increase in gateway 2 applications. This could be because of the building safety levy, which comes into effect in October 2026.”
The numbers back it up. Across all categories there are now 1,654 Gateway 2 applications in progress, against 1,547 in the previous dataset — an increase of over 100 in August. For new higher-risk buildings and conversions specifically, applications in progress rose from 131 at the end of July to 147, with 34 new-build applications received in August alone. BSR says it expects that number “to increase in September, due to the introduction of the building safety levy on 1 October 2026”, and that it has a mitigation plan in place.
As covered in our levy explainer, the levy applies to applications for building control approval submitted on or after 1 October 2026. Applications made before that date are not caught, which is why the queue is growing. For higher-risk buildings, the application in question is the Gateway 2 application to BSR.
The performance numbers: holding steady
August 2026 marks twelve months since BSR’s Innovation Unit was set up to handle new-build HRB applications exclusively, and the one-year comparison is the one BSR leads with. At that point the median approval time for new builds was 43 weeks with a 39% approval rate. Now it is 22 weeks and 92%.
For the rolling 12 weeks to 31 August, the new-build figures are: 63 applications in, 50 decisions, 46 approvals and 4 rejections, 9,362 residential units approved and 32,691 units in progress. Four applications were invalidated and one withdrawn. Complex cases — now tracked separately — number 33 and run to a 33-week median. Rejections come back faster than approvals, at a median of 8 weeks.
London still dominates: around 65% of in-progress new-build applications and 61% of the units are there, and 31 of the 50 new-build decisions in the period were London schemes, approved at a 90% rate with non-complex cases taking 23 weeks.
External remediation continues to improve: an 89% approval rate and a 33-week median, down from 47% and 43 weeks a year ago. Only 12 legacy applications from 2024 remain, down from 42 at the start of 2026, and BSR notes that 2026 approval rates already exceed its 75% target. HRB internal works sit at 78% and 32 weeks, with 457 new applications in — around 43% of all Gateway 2 decisions. NHS internal works, reported separately, are at 82% and 22 weeks, with 2026 submissions down to a 13-week median.
On resourcing, BSR reports 177 internal staff and 508 people from external organisations involved in building control work, and says it has grown its internal regulatory team by 25 in the past three months, with recruitment continuing for the next six to twelve months.
Two things that are new
Inspections have found work departing from approved designs. For the first time, the dataset reports that BSR’s “growing inspection programme has found a small number of examples where building work has not followed agreed designs and has required some remedial work”. BSR says it will monitor this closely and take action “to help make sure that buildings are constructed in line with safe designs”. This is the point of the Gateway regime: the design approved at Gateway 2 is the design that has to be built, and the evidence of that is what Gateway 3 tests.
Major change requests are being turned round in seven weeks. There are 184 live major change requests, and BSR closed 123 in the period. For new-build projects the median closure time is 7 weeks — one week over the statutory target. That matters because a major change to an approved HRB design has to be approved before the work continues, so this is the number that governs how quickly a design change on site can be actioned.
Gateway 3: still nobody home
No new-build project that passed through Gateway 2 has yet reached Gateway 3 — the equivalent hard stop before occupation. Of the 346 Gateway 3 applications received so far, 260 are internal refurbishments, 45 are transitional cases and 23 are NHS internal refurbishments. Over the past 12 weeks 16 Gateway 3 applications were determined at an 88% approval rate and a 20-week median (the quickest in 7 weeks). BSR describes this as “an important area”, particularly for new build, and expects determination times to reduce as new processes and resource come in. As the first cohort of Innovation Unit approvals completes, this is the stage to watch.
Why the rejection rate now has a price
Put the two halves of this dataset together. A rush of applications is going in to beat the levy. Eight per cent of new-build decisions are rejections, and a further handful of applications are being invalidated for not meeting the submission requirements.
Under the levy regulations, an application submitted before 1 October is not liable — but, as our levy explainer set out, if a pre-October application is rejected and then resubmitted after the go-live date, the resubmission is liable. An application that is invalidated has to be made again, and the date of the resubmission is a question worth putting to the building control authority before you rely on the September date. On a major residential scheme the levy is a per-square-metre charge on the whole chargeable floorspace, so the difference between “approved” and “rejected, resubmit in November” is no longer a programme question alone.
There is a second date in play for the same schemes. Under the Future Homes Standard transitional arrangements, a higher-risk building keeps Part L 2021 only where a valid Gateway 2 application is made before 24 September 2027 and the work starts in time. A rejected or invalidated application does not stop that clock either.
What to do with this
If you have a higher-risk scheme going to BSR in the next three weeks, the priority is validity and completeness, not speed of submission. BSR is explicit that the improvement in approval rates has come from better-quality applications and a shared understanding of what compliance evidence it expects. That includes the Part L, ventilation and fabric evidence — the SAP 10.2 or 10.3 calculation, the U-values and junction Ψ-values behind it, and the Part F strategy — which has to be consistent with the drawings and specification in the same submission.
If you’d like that energy and fabric evidence checked for consistency before a Gateway 2 application goes in, get in touch and we’ll tell you how we’d approach it.
Sources: Building Safety Regulator building control approval application data June to August 2026 (GOV.UK, published 4 September 2026) · Building control approval application data June to August 2026 (PDF) · Building Safety Regulator building control approval application data May to July 2026 (GOV.UK)