Credit: istock coldsnowstorm
The government has awarded the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) £2m worth of additional funding to speed up the vetting of planning applications for high-rise buildings.In a written statement, published on February 13, housing minister Matthew Pennycook announced the extra funding to support the improved processing of new-build applications by the BSR.
He said the funding was designed to address industry concerns about ‘pinch points’ in the construction process by ensuring ‘greater timeliness and efficiency’ by the regulator when signing off new tall buildings.
The government’s move follows a call by the British Property Federation (BPF) for the Treasury to provide additional the BSR with additional resource to reduce delays and enable projects to move forward.
In its response to the Treasury’s upcoming comprehensive spending review, the BPF cites ‘extreme frustration’ among its members about the backlogs involved with applications going through the BSR.
‘The backlog of applications going through the Building Safety Regulator is causing projects to either be delayed or abandoned altogether, running counter to the urgent need for new homes,’ the BPF says, adding that the BSR is ‘failing by a considerable margin’ to meet its statutory timescales for signing off applications, as a resulting of which projects are being ‘delayed or shelved’.
The regulator’s delays have increased project risk and therefore added to ‘what are already very difficult viability conditions’, it says.
The submission adds resource seem to be a ‘significant constraint’ on the BSR’s ability to deliver on its timescales.
Jonathan Seager, policy delivery director at the BusinessLDN umbrella group, said: ‘The new pledge to provide more funding for bodies which can help release projects stuck in the pipeline is very welcome, especially where the Building Safety Regulator is concerned.’
