Status: Live regulatory update
Authority: UK Building Safety Regulator (Health and Safety Executive)
Applicability: High-Risk Buildings (HRBs) – England
Period Covered: Q4 2025 performance; January 2026 guidance position

Current Position: Gateway 2 determinations increased to record levels in late 2025, with live applications beginning to reduce. At the same time, the regulator has flagged potential structural safety risks linked to reinforced concrete transfer slabs in existing high-risk buildings.

Introduction: a quiet but important shift in the safety regime

The Building Safety Regulator’s January 2026 ebulletin marks a subtle but significant inflection point in how the post-Building Safety Act regime is now operating in practice.

While headline attention has largely focused on Gateway 2 delays and industry frustration through 2024–2025, the regulator’s latest update signals a system that is no longer simply stabilising, but beginning to assert expectations around quality, competence and legacy structural risk.

Two elements stand out:

• A record acceleration in Gateway 2 determinations, accompanied by clearer validation and rejection criteria.
• An early regulatory signal around potential structural risks associated with reinforced concrete transfer slabs in existing buildings.

Taken together, these point to a regime that is moving beyond backlog management and into a more assertive, risk-led enforcement phase.

Gateway 2: from backlog clearing to quality filtering

The regulator confirmed that between late September and December 2025:

• 727 Gateway 2 determinations were issued
• 347 decisions were made in the final 12 weeks of the year
• Live applications reduced from 1,219 to 1,158
• The final quarter of 2025 represented the highest decision output since BSR commenced operations

Crucially, this performance improvement is not being framed as a temporary push, but as the result of new internal processes and more structured engagement with applicants. The accompanying publication of guidance on staged applications and explicit criteria for validating, approving, or rejecting submissions is the more important signal.

Operationally, this indicates that the regulator now considers the system sufficiently mature to differentiate between:

• Well-prepared, coordinated submissions
• Speculative, incomplete, or poorly integrated design packages

For London projects, particularly complex mixed-use or high-density residential schemes, this shifts the risk profile materially. Gateway 2 is no longer functioning primarily as a capacity bottleneck; it is becoming a quality filter.

The implication for Principal Designers and lead consultants is clear: reliance on informal tolerance or iterative correction post-submission is diminishing. Poorly resolved fire, structure, or coordination narratives are increasingly likely to be rejected earlier rather than delayed indefinitely.

Staged applications: formalised, not discretionary

The regulator’s clarification on staged applications closes a loophole that had been used inconsistently across the industry. Staging is now positioned as a legitimate regulatory pathway only where it reflects genuine construction sequencing and risk management, rather than a mechanism to defer unresolved design issues.

This matters because staged submissions are now explicitly linked to validation criteria. In practical terms, that means:

• Staging must be justified against construction logic
• Each stage must be internally coherent and safety-complete
• Deferred information will be tested against risk, not programme pressure

For contractors inheriting weak or fragmented design information, this creates a sharper commercial and programme risk. The regulator’s improving throughput reduces tolerance for submissions that are staged purely to maintain momentum on site.

Transfer slabs: an early warning, not an isolated note

Alongside Gateway 2 performance, the regulator published information highlighting a potential structural safety issue in reinforced concrete buildings constructed with transfer slabs. The language used is deliberately measured, but the significance should not be underestimated.

Transfer slabs are a common feature in London’s built environment, particularly in:

• Mixed-use developments with commercial or retail podiums
• Residential towers above car parks or plant levels
• Value-engineered schemes from the late 1990s through the 2010s

By flagging this issue, the regulator is signalling a shift in focus toward understanding load paths, redundancy, and deterioration mechanisms in existing high-risk buildings, not just compliance in new construction.

Importantly, the regulator is working jointly with industry experts and MHCLG, indicating that this is an exploratory but serious line of inquiry. Building owners are being encouraged to take proportionate steps to manage risk, a phrase that in regulatory terms usually precedes clearer expectations.

For Accountable Persons, this introduces a new layer of potential scrutiny. Demonstrating that a building’s structural system is understood, monitored and managed may soon require more than historic design drawings or generic inspection regimes.

Existing buildings are moving up the risk agenda

The transfer slab update sits alongside other recent signals, including new training on managing ageing buildings and lifecycle deterioration in HRBs.

Taken together, these point to an expanding regulatory lens that includes:

• Long-term durability and degradation
• Hidden or misunderstood load transfer mechanisms
• Legacy design assumptions that may not align with current safety expectations

This is particularly relevant in London, where much of the residential high-rise stock now falling under the Building Safety Act was designed and constructed under earlier regulatory regimes. The regulator is not suggesting immediate danger, but it is clearly laying groundwork for a more structured approach to assessing and managing structural risk in occupied buildings.

What this means for industry in 2026

The January 2026 update confirms a regime that is transitioning from implementation to consolidation.

Key implications include:

• Gateway 2 delays are increasingly attributable to submission quality rather than regulatory capacity
• Principal Designers face greater accountability for integration and completeness
• Contractors are more exposed to inherited design risk at Gateway 2
• Accountable Persons should expect rising expectations around evidence-based structural understanding
• Existing buildings, not just new developments, are becoming a regulatory priority

For organisations that adapt early, this creates an opportunity to demonstrate competence, foresight and control. For those relying on minimum compliance or legacy assumptions, the direction of travel is less forgiving.

The Building Safety Regulator’s January 2026 bulletin does not announce new rules, but it clearly shows how the system is beginning to behave now that initial disruption has passed.

Gateway 2 is accelerating, but with sharper filters. Structural risk is being examined not just at design stage, but across the life of buildings. Competence and quality are being embedded through guidance, training and early risk signalling rather than sudden enforcement.

For the London construction market, this represents a move toward a more predictable, but more demanding, regulatory environment. The message is consistent: the era of informal tolerance is ending and the era of demonstrable control has begun.

Image © London Construction Magazine Limited

Expert Verification & Authorship: Mihai Chelmus Founder, London Construction Magazine | Construction Testing & Investigation Specialist