What does the BSR’s building update mean?
Isabelle Crow
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The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) has released a building control GW2 update to 1 October 2025.
This update aims to demonstrate initial positive impacts on application processes for new high-rise residential buildings.
New build applications and housing units
BSR is currently progressing 152 live new build applications, representing 33,670 housing units across England.
An additional, 253 live remediation applications are also being processed, covering an estimated 22,304 housing units.
This comes amidst a steady rising pace of decisions, with determinations reaching an all-time high of 209 across all application types during August.
The newly established Innovation Unit (IU), a dedicated centralised resource is now managing 27 new build applications (6,192 housing units).
The IU is already demonstrating progress, with the majority of applications currently meeting or exceeding the 12-week service level agreement (SLA) for processing applications.
Average working days for key milestones are also currently performing better than targets.
An increased volume of cases
A new batching process was also launched during September 2025, acknowledging that the original Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) model was not effective for managing the volume of cases.
This new pilot process scales capacity by bundling applications to specialised engineering services suppliers for accelerated assessment.
The first mixed-category bundle of 26 cases was dispatched on 30 September.
Aside from recent changes, BSR’s priority over the remainder of the year is resolving 91 historic new build applications (which contain around 22,000 new housing units) submitted under the previous model.
BSR’s team is applying a bespoke plan to address individual ‘blockers’ within these cases, projecting the majority of historic cases will be closed by 31 December, with a final three expected to close in January 2026.
Chief Executive Officer, Building Safety Regulator, Charlie Pugsley’s statement
Charlie Pugsley, Chief Executive Officer of the Building Safety Regulator, said: “The regulator has been learning from the last two years, has listened to industry feedback and acted decisively through these substantial operational changes we are piloting, which have shown immediate, positive results.
“We have already seen early success with our Innovation Unit and are now deploying strategic capacity scaling, including the new batching system.
“However, we recognise there are ongoing challenges including national skills shortages and we are committed to use agile problem-solving to work constructively with the wider sector and industry applicants.
“Our focus on further improvements will support the pace of essential construction without compromising the essential safety standards required under the Building Safety Act 2022 to keep people safe in their homes.”
Building Safety Regulator announce October update: Summary
The Building Safety Regulator (BSR) has released a building control GW2 update to 1 October 2025.