Major house builder and London landlords call for review of Gateway 2 approval process

Projects cannot move to the next stage without approval. The first gateway is the planning process, the second is building control sign-off – required before work can begin on site – and the third happens at the end of construction to show the building is safe to occupy.

However, progress has been slow because of capacity issues at the BSR, alongside inadequate applications.  

In the update, the house builder said it remains “hugely encouraged by the change in mindset over planning”, brought about by the government’s planning reforms and housing delivery ambitions.

Over the period, Berkeley said it secured “important amendments” on 10 of its long-term regeneration sites. 

“We are now working with our local authority partners to finalise the Section 106 agreements and clear conditions on a number of these so they can be implemented. 

“We are also actively appraising a number of opportunities in the land market,” according to the trading update. 

But the Surrey-based firm said it “remains concerned by the impact of the extent and pace” of regulatory changes of recent years, “as we now await details of the new Building Safety Levy”.

“Taken together, these incremental changes place significant pressure on the delivery of new homes,” it said. Berkeley also reaffirmed that it expects to deliver “at least” £525m of pre-tax profit in 2024-25 and £450m in 2025-26.

It reported that net cash is anticipated to be around £300m on 30 April 2025, compared with £474m on 31 October 2024. 

The developer said this reflects an “acceleration of shareholder returns” since the half year through share buy-backs and the anticipated settlement of around £180m of land creditors in the second half of the year.  

Berkeley added: “The actual out-turn will be determined by the pace of further share buy-backs, any new land investment and the phasing of legal completions around the year end.”

A spokesperson for the BSR said it “welcomes the support of G15 to aid our ongoing continuous review of our processes and as a means to provide key messages to industry to help decrease assessment times”.

They said: “To increase effectiveness, BSR has recruited additional personnel and brought in experts to streamline processes to improve efficiency.  

“BSR is also looking at how it resources the multidisciplinary teams that assess applications to enable these teams to be stood up more quickly. 

“These teams consist of registered building inspectors, Fire and Rescue Service personnel and other specialist skills.”

The BSR said it received additional funding this year from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to improve its “infrastructure, training and processes”. 

It said that many of the delays are “not due to” the BSR processes, “but related to the construction industry”. 

“[By] either failing to provide the design details necessary to demonstrate that the requirements of the building regulations are being met and/or providing excessive amounts of irrelevant information without structure, sign posting or interpretation.

“Excessive amounts of unnecessary material increases assessment time for BSR determining what is relevant and what is irrelevant, particularly when thousands of documents have been submitted,” it said. 

In January, Tim Galloway, deputy director at the BSR, told the London Assembly’s fire committee that 40% of applications are “not able to assure us that the functional requirements” are being met.

The G15 has been contacted for comment.