BPF tells Reeves to find more money to clear backlog of schemes held up by new safety rules

The British Property Federation (BPF) has called for a “new approach” on resourcing at the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), after it emerged high-rise residential schemes were facing delays of up to two years.

Building reported last week that delays in handling applications for so-called ‘higher risk’ housing schemes taller than 18m were caused largely by an outsourcing model adopted by the BSR, which does not employ its own in-house technical staff.

This is slowing down approvals needed for schemes to start construction due to a lack of spare capacity in the private sector and local authority building control, with BSR head of operations, planning and building control Andrew Moore admitting the approach “isn’t working as we’d hoped”.

BPF is now calling for chancellor Rachel Reeves to provide “additional resource” for the regulator at next month’s spending review to enable held up projects to move forward, warning the backlog of applications is “running counter to the urgent need for new homes”.

>> See also: What the delays at the Building Safety Regulator mean for high-rise development

It said delays of between 18 and 24 months are saddling investors “who no longer have an economic interest in a building with unnecessary legal commitments and is preventing new owners from taking full control of a building and making productive use of it”.

The body has calculated that legal teams are currently spending 12,000 working days each year chasing applications, while some schemes are being abandoned altogether.

BPF chief executive Melanie Leech said the government’s reforms to the planning system will not deliver homes, infrastructure and growth unless the regulatory and planning system is “made more efficient and adequately resourced”.  

She added: “To unlock the billions of pounds of investment needed to build more homes, employment spaces, infrastructure and to support improvements in key public services such as the NHS, we need the Government  to create a supportive fiscal and regulatory environment that will give the real estate sector the confidence to take long-term investment decisions. 

“That requires a new smarter approach to regulation and ensuring that it is properly resourced.”

The BPF is also urging the government to fund more than 300 planning officers, the number which ministers had promised in last year’s autumn budget as part of a drive to speed up planning approvals.

It is also calling for a 10-year rent settlement to support private investment in affordable residential schemes over the next five years, and for stamp duty relief for multiple dwellings to be reinstated.