For two years, Gateway 2 was the part of the Building Safety Act that the industry talked about with a sinking feeling. Schemes stalled, programmes slipped and developers quietly steered away from higher-risk work.
In 2026 the picture looks different. The data now points to a regime that is recovering, and the implications for how masonry façades are designed, specified and built are significant. Here is where things stand, and what it means if your project involves an external masonry wall on a higher-risk building.
The numbers have turned a corner
The Building Safety Regulator’s most recent figures, covering the 12 weeks to 30 May 2026, show a genuine shift. Around 75% of Gateway 2 applications that passed validation were approved in the period. The Regulator made 358 Gateway 2 decisions in the period. Of the close to 15,000 residential units those decisions covered, roughly 9,500 were approved.
Remediation work, long the slowest-moving category, has improved too. Approval rates for existing-building applications reached 79% over the same period, comfortably ahead of the Regulator’s own 65% minimum target for the year.
The headline that matters most to anyone planning a programme is timescale. Approval times that once stretched to around 48 weeks in London and 43 weeks nationally have fallen sharply. The BSR’s batching pilot now reports a median of 12 to 14 weeks from a case being issued to a decision, and some applications are landing within the statutory 12-week window. For complex higher-risk buildings, the BSR’s Innovation Unit recorded a 90% approval rate in the latest period, with a median approval time of around 22 weeks.
This is not a solved problem. Almost 39,000 residential units remain inside live Gateway 2 cases awaiting determination, and London still accounts for roughly 65% of all decisions, so regional capacity and complex cases continue to test the system. But the direction of travel is now clearly positive.
What changed
The turnaround follows a deliberate reset. On 27 January 2026 the BSR moved out of the Health and Safety Executive to become a standalone public body sponsored by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, a step towards the single construction regulator recommended by the Grenfell Inquiry. Alongside the structural change came a new leadership team, more than 100 new staff, multi-disciplinary assessment teams brought in-house, and an Innovation Unit set up to work through the most technically demanding submissions. BSR chair Andy Roe, who has acknowledged that the system he inherited was effectively broken, puts the shift down to engagement as much as resource: “The way we’ve communicated and approached things has completely changed.”
Process reform has done the rest. In December 2025 the Regulator extended staged applications to single-tower higher-risk buildings, those of at least seven storeys or 18 metres, allowing groundwork and foundations to be approved separately from the superstructure. The Construction Leadership Council published supporting guidance at the same time. By March 2027 the BSR is targeting decisions on non-complex Gateway 2 applications within 18 weeks or less.
The lesson from the recovery is consistent across every commentary: the applications that move fastest are the ones submitted complete, coordinated and backed by evidence that matches what is actually being built. What design teams have wanted throughout, in the words of Ben Oram, head of technical at Buckley Gray Yeoman, is “predictability and consistency” from the Regulator: a clear view of what is expected and how long it will take. A complete, well-evidenced submission is how a project earns that predictability.
Why this matters for masonry façade design
Gateway 2 sits before a single brick is laid. Before work starts, the full external wall system must be submitted to the BSR and approved as a complete, tested assembly. Every layer is in scope, with no exceptions: insulation, sheathing, cavity barriers, the cladding face and, crucially, the support and fixing components that hold the wall together.
That last point is where masonry façades feel the regime most directly. Generic descriptions no longer pass. A submission that refers to “non-combustible support” or “an A2 system” without defining it will draw a request for further information or a rejection. Each component, including masonry support brackets, windposts, cavity trays and their fixings, has to be identified, tested and justified as part of the specific build-up proposed for that project.
The evidence expected is detailed and has to be coherent across disciplines:
- Reaction to fire, classified to BS EN 13501-1, with non-combustible A1 or A2 performance being the dependable route given the longstanding ban on combustible materials in relevant external walls.
- Structural design to the Eurocodes, typically BS EN 1990 and BS EN 1993, covering loadings, wind action and the mechanical performance of supports and connections.
- Weathertightness and movement, often demonstrated against CWCT standards.
- Durability and corrosion data, for example to BS EN ISO 9223, appropriate to the building’s design life and exposure.
Test evidence that is out of date, partial, or describes a different configuration to the one being built will be turned down. A certificate for a different bracket, a different cavity width or a different substrate is not enough. The data has to describe the system as it will actually be installed.
Interfaces are scrutinised just as hard as products. The submission must show how masonry support and cavity trays tie into the primary structure and the wider façade without compromising fire resistance, drainage or thermal continuity. The junctions, in other words, carry as much regulatory weight as the components themselves.
The construction-phase pressure: Change Control
Approval is not the end of the story, and this is where masonry packages can come unstuck. Once a Gateway 2 approval is in place, any change to the approved design has to be managed through formal change control, and the industry is still working out where the line falls between recordable, notifiable and major changes. A late substitution of a bracket, washer or angle, the kind of value-engineering swap that used to happen on site without much ceremony, can now trigger a change-control process and, in the worst case, a return to the Regulator.
The practical consequence is that the freedom to substitute masonry support components late in the programme has largely gone. What is specified and approved is what gets built. Getting the system right at submission, and keeping the paperwork aligned with the product on site, is now a programme risk in its own right.
What this means in practice
For anyone specifying a masonry façade on a higher-risk building, the recovery in Gateway 2 timescales is good news, but it is conditional. The schemes moving through quickly are the ones that arrive complete. For the masonry support package, that means three things matter more than ever:
- Specify the actual system, not a placeholder. Define the support, windposts, cavity trays and fixings precisely, with test and design evidence that matches the configuration on the drawings.
- Choose non-combustible with confidence. A1 performance removes any question over reaction to fire and keeps the wall build-up on the safest side of the regulations.
- Lock it down early. Decisions taken before submission, with a full evidence trail, avoid the change-control friction that now follows any post-approval substitution.
This is precisely the territory FIRMA is built for. Our masonry support systems, windposts, lintels and brick slip soffit systems are non-combustible by design and supported by the structural, fire and durability evidence a Gateway 2 submission needs, delivered as a coordinated package rather than a loose collection of certificates. Early engagement, 3D design and a clear traceable record of what has been specified is how we help project teams turn the regime’s demands into an approval that holds.
Gateway 2 in 2026 is no longer the bottleneck it was. As the BSR’s acting chief executive Charlie Pugsley has been careful to stress, faster decisions “must never come at the cost of building safety,” and that is the point for anyone specifying a façade: the goal was never speed for its own sake, but safe buildings approved without avoidable delay. For masonry façades, the buildings that move fastest will be the ones designed, specified and evidenced as complete systems from the outset. That is a standard worth designing to, whatever the Regulator’s timescales do next.
The figures in this article are drawn from the Building Safety Regulator’s published data and industry reporting current to early June 2026. For advice on specifying a Gateway 2 ready masonry support system, talk to the FIRMA technical team.
Information and details on the statistics used in this article can be found on the government website
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