The Building Safety Regulator: who runs the regime, and how

What is the BSR, and why did it change shape?

The Building Safety Act answered Dame Judith Hackitt's central demand with a single regulator for higher-risk buildings, and on 1 October 2023 the Building Safety Regulator became the building control authority for every HRB in England. Its first two years were defined by the Gateway 2 backlog: decision times that peaked at an average of 43 weeks nationally and 48 in London against a 12-week statutory clock.

The response was structural. In June 2025 the government pulled the BSR out of the Health and Safety Executive, appointed new leadership, Andy Roe as chair and Charlie Pugsley as chief executive, added more than a hundred staff, and stood up a Fast Track Process and an Innovation Unit for new-build applications. On 27 January 2026 the BSR became a standalone public body sponsored by MHCLG, the structural step toward the single construction regulator the Grenfell Inquiry's Phase 2 report recommended in September 2024.

What does it control across a building's life?

Everything the regime touches. At planning it advises as statutory consultee on fire statements. Before construction it determines Gateway 2 applications and rules on major changes during the build. At completion it inspects and determines Gateway 3, and it keeps the register no higher-risk building can lawfully be occupied without. In occupation it assesses safety cases, issues building assessment certificates and receives mandatory occurrence reports. And across all of it sits enforcement: compliance notices, stop notices and prosecution, with gateway breaches carrying unlimited fines and up to two years imprisonment.

Is it actually working now?

The data says the recovery is real. From roughly 200 decisions in the first quarter of 2025 to more than 700 in the fourth; 358 decisions at a 75% approval rate in the twelve weeks to 30 May 2026; batching medians of 12 to 14 weeks with some approvals inside the statutory 12; and the Innovation Unit running at a 90% approval rate. The legacy new-build backlog was cut to low single figures in spring 2026, and the BSR's target is non-complex Gateway 2 decisions in 18 weeks or less by March 2027.

The caveats are equally real: circa 38,775 residential units still sit in live applications, 65% of decisions concentrate in London, and the autumn 2026 double deadline will stress the machine with a submissions surge just as Gateway 3 volume starts building. The section's spokes below follow each moving part, and the Gateway Projects Tracker names the schemes coming through.