Transparency data

Building Safety Regulator building control approval application data March to May 2026

Updated 9 June 2026

Applies to England

All data is correct as of 30 May 2026 and provided by the Building Safety Regulator (BSR).

Gateway 2: Priority headline numbers for new build

Status	Legacy cases	Innovation Unit	Complex cases	Transitional cases	Total
New cases received	0	64	0	0	64
Decisions made, withdrawn and invalid	14	33	21	7	75
Cases in progress as of 1 Oct	91	27	0	34	152
Cases in progress as of 1 June	0	122	14	42	178

​ Total number of units in new cases received 13,964 ​

​

​ Total number of units in decisions made 14,928 ​

​

​ Total number of units in cases in progress as of 1 June 38,775 ​

Commentary

• In the 12-week rolling period to 29 May, 31 new build Innovation Unit (IU) applications have been determined with 64 new applications received. The number of approvals since the data series began has reached 43.​
• Of the 31 decisions made in the 12-week rolling period, 28 were approvals and 3 were rejections. This means that the 12-week rolling approval rate now stands at 90%, with a median approval time of 22 weeks, reflecting the significant effort to work through issues and to enable safe homes.​
• We have reduced the number of legacy, long-term cases to 5. These have significant technical challenges and have been managed as ‘complex cases’ since February. This is where account managers work closely with applicants to try to achieve a successful outcome.​
• 9 in progress IU cases are deemed complex cases, as we continue to work closely with applicants to reduce rejections and reach an approval despite technical challenges.​
• Transitional cases now stand at 42, reflecting our acceptance of projects that were previously managed by Assent Building Control which ceased trading in late 2025.​
• Over the past 12 weeks new applications for 13,964 residential units have been received. This has been outstripped by decisions, with applications for 14,928 units being determined, of which 9,499 (64%) were approvals. There are currently 38,775 units in in progress cases.

Innovation Unit (national)

Innovation Unit: new in versus closed decisions (national)​

Week commencing	New in	Closed decisions	Total cases in progress
9 Mar	7	4	116
16 Mar	9	1	124
23 Mar	2	8	118
30 Mar	3	3	118
6 Apr	3	1	120
13 Apr	4	1	123
20 Apr	3	2	124
27 Apr	10	5	129
4 May	5	4	130
11 May	5	4	131
18 May	10	4	137
25 May	3	9	131

Innovation Unit: performance totals (national)​

Description	Total
New in	64
In progress	131
Units approved	3,002 ​
Units in progress	30,369 ​

Innovation Unit: performance percentages and weeks taken (national)​

In the period, there were:

• 31 decisions made
• 15 invalid or withdrawn applications
• 9 complex cases in progress with a median approval time of 33 weeks

Description	Percentage	Weeks taken (median) ​​
Rejections	10%	28
Approval	90%	22

Commentary

• Out of 64 applications received over the past 12 weeks, 8 applications were invalidated and 7 withdrawn.​
• Of the 31 decisions made, 28 were approvals and 3 were rejections.​
• This means that the 12-week rolling approval rate (not including invalidations and withdrawals) has risen to 90% with the median approval time remaining at 22 weeks.​
• IU approvals now stand at 43 in total.​
• Complex cases are now tracked separately and, whilst the final decision is included in the rejection or approval totals, their median approval time is now at 33 weeks.​
• We continue to work closely with industry on a shared understanding of compliance as we seek to reduce the number of complex cases in the system.​
• New applications have been received at an average rate of around 6 per week over the past 12 weeks, which, using the current median determination period of 22 weeks suggests that our head of work should be 130 to 140, plus a small number of complex cases.​
• The overall combined head of work reflects that expectation – currently sitting at 131, having risen slowly over the past 3 months.

Remediation (national)

Remediation: new in versus closed decisions (national)

Week commencing	New in	Closed decisions	Total in progress cases
9 Mar	13	10	324
16 Mar	4	10	318
23 Mar	15	11	322
30 Mar	19	6	335
6 Apr	6	2	339
13 Apr	7	3	343
20 Apr	15	3	355
27 Apr	9	13	351
4 May	8	6	353
11 May	6	4	355
18 May	10	7	358
25 May	7	6	359

Remediation: performance (national)

Description	Total
New in	119
In progress	359
Units approved	5,030
Units in progress	32,340

Remediation: performance percentages and weeks taken (national)

In the period, there were:

• 67 decisions made
• 14 invalid or withdrawn applications

Description	Percentage	Weeks taken (median)
Rejections	21%	32
Approval	79%	39

Commentary

• The 12-week approval rate has risen to 79% with the median approval time falling to 39 weeks as we successfully make decisions on older applications which have been in the system for some time.​
• 16 legacy applications made in 2024 now remain, and approval rates in 2026 have exceeded the 65% target. A further 10 of the legacy 2024 applications are on track to be determined in June.
• We also continue to work closely with the sector to help applicants improve the quality of applications and data shows that applications submitted in October to December 2025 are progressing through the system faster than earlier applications. However, the average approval time in weeks based on the rolling total includes older 2024 to 2025 applications being cleared, hence the high figure.​
• We have already published updated guidance for applications and more detailed resources focusing on common issues that result in rejection will be published in the coming weeks.​

All categories (national)

All categories new in versus closed decisions (national)

Week commencing	New in	Closed decisions	Total cases in progress
9 Mar	94	67	1,475
16 Mar	71	61	1,485
23 Mar	63	55	1,493
30 Mar	59	40	1,512
6 Apr	47	42	1,517
13 Apr	50	37	1,530
20 Apr	62	62	1,530
27 Apr	65	68	1,527
4 May	78	51	1,554
11 May	71	126	1,499
18 May	52	90	1,461
25 May	38	54	1,445

All categories: performance (national)

Description	Total
New in	750
In progress	1,445

All categories: performance percentages and weeks taken (national)

In the period, there were:

• 358 decisions made
• 396 invalid or withdrawn applications
• 14 complex cases in progress with a median approval time of 33 weeks

Description	Percentage	Weeks taken (median)
Rejections	25%	25
Approval	75%	32

Commentary

• The overall approval rate for applications of all categories has risen to 75%.​
• The number of ‘in progress’ applications of all categories at gateway 2 has fallen by more than 100 over the last month.​
• Decisions exceeded the number of new applications over the past 12 weeks. With a total of 754 closed applications against 750 new applications.​
• Category A and B determinations over the past 3 months account for circa 67% of gateway 2 volume of decisions. These applications include all internal refurbishment works as well as NHS applications.

Gateway 2: Regional distribution​

Data as of the 30 May 2026.​

Regional gateway 2 applications (London)​

Region	Innovation Unit	Legacy cases	Remediation	Total
London	90	4	201	295
Rest of country	50	1	157	208

Regional gateway 2 applications (rest of England)​

Region	Innovation Unit	Legacy cases	Remediation	Total
East	0	0	21	21
East Midlands	0	0	11	11
North-east	1	0	8	9
North-west	26	0	49	75
South-east	9	0	29	38
South-west	4	1	13	18
West Midlands	6	0	12	18
Yorkshire and The Humber	4	0	14	18

Innovation Unit (London)

Innovation Unit: new in versus closed decisions (London)

Week commencing	New in	Closed decisions	Total cases in progress
9 Mar	3	2	72
16 Mar	2	0	74
23 Mar	1	3	72
30 Mar	2	3	71
6 Apr	3	1	73
13 Apr	3	1	75
20 Apr	2	1	76
27 Apr	5	2	79
4 May	4	3	80
11 May	5	2	83
18 May	7	3	87
25 May	3	3	87

Innovation Unit: performance (London)

Description	Total
New in	40
In progress	87
Units approved	2,109
Units in progress	17,486

Innovation Unit: performance percentages and weeks taken (London)

In the period, there were:

• 19 decisions made
• 5 invalid or withdrawn applications
• 3 complex cases in progress

Description	Percentage	Weeks taken (median)
Rejections	0%	Not applicable
Approval	100%	22

Commentary

• Around 66% of in progress IU applications are in London.​
• This also represents around 58% of the overall residential units handled by the IU.​
• 19 of the 31 decisions that the IU has made in the last 12 weeks are in London.​
• London approval rates are 100%, significantly higher than nationally. This figure reflects significant work to resolve outstanding complex cases.​
• Approval time for non-complex cases matches the national average of 22 weeks.​

Remediation (London)

Remediation: new in versus closed decisions (London)

Week commencing	New in	Closed decisions	Total cases in progress
9 Mar	4	4	178
16 Mar	4	6	176
23 Mar	9	8	177
30 Mar	7	3	181
6 Apr	0	1	180
13 Apr	3	1	182
20 Apr	13	2	193
27 Apr	1	8	186
4 May	6	2	190
11 May	4	1	193
18 May	8	3	198
25 May	6	3	201

Remediation: performance (London)

Description	Total
New in	65
In progress	201
Units approved	1,294
Units in progress	17,597

Remediation: performance percentages and weeks taken (London)

In the period, there were:

• 36 decisions made
• 6 invalid or withdrawn applications

Description	Percentage	Weeks taken (median)
Rejections	33%	32
Approval	67%	51

Commentary

• Open remediation cases in London have increased over the period from 178 to 201.​
• We announced the BSR remediation improvement plan in April 2026. We have already made progress with 16 legacy 2024 applications now remaining, down from 42 at the start of 2026.​
• 2026 approval rates already exceed the 65% target for 2026 at 67%.​
• London approval rates of 67% are slightly lower than they are nationally.​

All categories (London)

All categories: new in versus closed decisions (London)

Week commencing	New in	Closed decisions	Total cases in progress
9 Mar	54	43	931
16 Mar	27	40	918
23 Mar	43	34	927
30 Mar	33	31	929
6 Apr	26	31	924
13 Apr	34	23	935
20 Apr	44	32	947
27 Apr	32	39	940
4 May	42	31	951
11 May	35	81	905
18 May	36	48	893
25 May	30	29	894

All categories: performance (London)

Description	Total
New in	436
In progress	894

All categories: performance percentages and weeks taken (London)

In the period, there were:

• 234 decisions made
• 238 invalid or withdrawn applications
• 7 complex cases in progress

Description	Percentage	Weeks taken (median)
Rejections	21%	28
Approval	79%	33

Commentary

• The number of in progress London applications of all categories at gateway 2 has decreased slightly over the past month, from 951 to 894.​
• A total of 472 applications have been closed, set against 436 new applications received.​
• 65% of all decisions across all gateway 2 categories in the past 12 weeks related to London cases.​
• Category A and B determinations in London over the past 3 months account for circa 73% of gateway 2 volume of decisions in London. These applications include all internal refurbishment works as well as NHS applications.​

Building control: Batching pilot

Batch volumes: cases allocated by batch number

Batch number	New build	Refurbishment	Remediation	Total
1	11	33	10	54
2	0	32	14	46
3	8	20	8	36
4	22	45	18	85
5	5	34	17	56
6	4	46	17	67
7	32	86	42	160
8	14	51	18	83
9	9	21	10	40
10	10	42	21	73
11	0	30	14	44
12	12	47	4	63
13	11	27	26	64
14	6	18	24	48
15	12	30	18	60
16	23	32	19	74
17	0	30	8	38
18	10	10	12	32
19	13	21	25	59
20	4	17	16	37
21	5	27	5	37
22	14	18	23	55
23	7	15	23	45
24	5	23	16	44
25	15	31	21	67
26	1	6	1	8
27	8	26	11	45
28	0	35	10	45
29	0	17	0	17
30	0	11	0	11
31	3	6	0	9
32	0	0	0	0
33	2	11	0	13

Commentary

• Batching is part of the overall process, not additional. So, the data shown in this and following sections is a subset of the data shown in earlier sections. ​
• This pilot process scales capacity by bundling applications to specialised engineering services suppliers for accelerated assessment, with BSR maintaining regulatory oversight. The primary goal of batching is to accelerate backlog resolution in newbuild and remediation applications.​
• The first of these mixed-category bundles (26 cases) was sent to suppliers on 30 September 2025. Weekly dispatch of subsequent bundles is based on supplier capacity.​
• The model follows a process where batches are issued to suppliers, they then have a limited time to accept or reject the cases in the allocation based on their capacity and any conflicts of interest. Once accepted, suppliers then have a defined period to return their assessments for consideration by BSR’s regulatory leads.​
• New submissions have dropped off in recent weeks as suppliers at are capacity with earlier batching work and we have grown our in-house multidisciplinary team (MDT) capacity.​

Batching pilot performance: new builds

Issued	Not yet accepted	Accepted	Returned	Decision made
257	60	197	126	60

​ Median weeks from issued to return 5 ​

​

​ Median weeks from issued to decision 12 ​

​

Batched new build decisions

Decision made	Percentage
Approval	28%
Approval with requirements	35% ​
Rejection	32%
Withdrawn	5%

Commentary

• Batching in new builds is being used to support only some building control applications. Most are considered by our in-house teams.​
• The batching approach is being used in some cases to access specialist resource to evaluate computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling in support of fire strategies submitted as part of an application. ​
• Approvals (or approval with requirements) for batching assessments relating to new build decisions sit at 56%.​

Batching pilot performance: external remediation

Issued	Not yet accepted	Accepted	Returned	Decision made
408	171	237	140	49

​ Median weeks from issued to return 4 ​

​

​ Median weeks from issued to decision 14 ​

​

Batching pilot performance: external remediation

Issued	Not yet accepted	Accepted	Returned	Decision made
408	171	237	140	49

​ Median weeks from issued to return 4 ​

​

​ Median weeks from issued to decision 14 ​

​

Batched remediation decisions

Decision made	Percentage
Approval	39%
Approval with requirements	6%​
Rejection	51%
Withdrawn	4%

Commentary

• External remediation often requires a ‘full’ MDT, made up of the 3 core specialisms: registered building inspector (RBI), fire and structural engineers.​
• Batching allows us to allocate remediation applications to one or more suppliers who have these capabilities available (while BSR maintains regulatory oversight) and is distributed across suppliers according to capacity.​
• Batching is proving effective in speeding up early assessment and decision, which means rejections are coming through more strongly as approvals typically take longer. The steady-state approval rates are therefore more representative.

Batching pilot performance: refurbishments

Issued	Not yet accepted	Accepted	Returned	Decision made
899	305	594	445	153

​ Median weeks from issued to return 4 ​

​

​ Median weeks from issued to decision 13 ​

​

Batched refurbishment decisions

Decision made	Percentage
Approval	56% ​
Approval with requirements	1%​
Rejection	38%
Withdrawn	5%

Commentary

• As with external remediation, category A refurbishments often require a ‘full’ MDT, made up of the 3 core specialisms: RBI, fire and structural engineers.​
• Batching allows us to allocate these refurbishment applications to one or more suppliers who have these capabilities available and is distributed across suppliers according to capacity.​
• Batching is proving effective in speeding up early assessment and decision, which means rejections are coming through more strongly as approvals typically take longer. The overall gateway 2 steady-state approval rates are therefore more representative.​

Innovation unit resources

Role	Actual as of 31 May	Forecast June (mid-month)	Forecast July (mid-month)	Forecast Aug (mid-month)
Registered building inspectors	20.7	24.3	31	32
Structural engineers	18.2	18.2	22.2	22
Fire engineers	8	8.5	9	9.4

All numbers are full-time equivalent – for example, some people are available to BSR fewer than 5 days per week, so the totals shown are aggregated.

Commentary

• BSR draws building inspector, fire engineer and structural engineer resources from partner organisations across the public and private sector.​
• These resources were brought in-house within BSR for the first time as part of the IU and allow BSR to have better control over resource allocation and tasking.​
• The provision of sufficient resource of this type is therefore critical to enabling the IU’s work.​
• Class 3 RBIs are the scarcest professional resource.​
• We are working to grow capacity to meet demand and to support other application categories such as remediation, including supporting with additional HR resource to enable this. Increasing capacity remains both a priority and a challenge for BSR.​

Gateway 2: Data tables

National data

	Innovation Unit	Remediation	All categories
In progress	131	359	1,445
New in	64	119	750
Decisions made	31	67	358
Invalid and withdrawn	15	14	396
Rejections	2	14	88
Complex rejections	1	0	1
Rejection %	10	21	25
Rejection weeks	28	32	25
Approvals	16	53	249
Complex approvals	12	0	20
Approval %	90	79	75
Approval weeks	22	39	32
Complex approval weeks	33	Not applicable	33
In progress units	30,369	32,340
Approved units	3,002	5,030	Not applicable

London data

	Innovation Unit	Remediation	All categories
In progress	87	201	894
New in	40	65	436
Decisions made	19	36	234
Invalid and withdrawn	5	6	238
Rejections	0	12	50
Complex rejections	0	0	0
Rejection %	0	33	21
Rejection weeks	Not applicable	0	28
Approvals	12	24	174
Complex approvals	7	0	10
Approval %	100	67	79
Approval weeks	22	51	33
Complex approval weeks	35	Not applicable	33
In progress units	17,486	17,597	Not applicable
Approved units	2,109	1,294	Not applicable