Gateways Two and Three: what happens after permission

Planning permission for a higher-risk building buys you the right to apply for building control approval, and nothing more. Gateway Two under the Building Safety Act 2022 regime is a hard stop before construction: work cannot begin on a higher-risk building until the Building Safety Regulator has approved the application, and the Regulator is the building control authority for these buildings rather than the local authority or an approved inspector. Gateway Three then sits at completion, and the building cannot be occupied until it is registered and a completion certificate has been issued. Developers who programme these as approvals that run alongside construction lose months.

The three gateways in outline

Gateway One is the planning stage, where the Health and Safety Executive is consulted on the fire statement submitted with the application. It looks at whether fire safety shaped the site layout, access and massing while those things can still change.

Gateway Two comes after permission and before construction. It is an application for building control approval, made to the Regulator, supported by the design and the fire and structural strategies for the building as a whole.

Gateway Three comes at the end, when the completed building is assessed against what was approved and the changes recorded along the way.

The three run on completely different tests, and passing one says nothing about the next. A supportive Gateway One response is not evidence for Gateway Two, which is a technical assessment of building regulations compliance rather than a planning judgement.

Gateway Two as a hard stop

This is the point that reshapes development programmes. Building work on a higher-risk building cannot start until the Regulator has granted building control approval.

A higher-risk building for these purposes is broadly one that is at least 18 metres in height or has at least seven storeys and contains at least two residential units, with hospitals and care homes brought in during design and construction. Measure the building and record the measurement, because a scheme near the threshold needs certainty long before the contractor is appointed.

Statutory decision periods apply to the application, commonly cited as twelve weeks for a new higher-risk building and eight weeks for work to an existing one, running from a valid application. Confirm the current periods with the Regulator, since the operational arrangements have developed since the regime began. What matters commercially is that the clock only starts when the application is valid, and an incomplete submission does not start it at all.

The practical consequence for a developer is that design has to be substantially complete before the application, at a level of resolution that traditional procurement often left until after work began on site. Contractor design portions, fire strategy details and structural connections all need resolving earlier than the industry was used to.

Information and the golden thread

The application has to demonstrate that the building as designed will comply with the applicable building regulations requirements, and it has to show how that will be maintained.

The golden thread is the mechanism. It is the structured, accessible digital information about the building and its safety, kept current through design, construction and occupation, and handed on to the accountable person. It is not a document set dumped into a folder at handover.

Three things trip projects up.

Information that exists but is not structured, so it cannot be searched or relied on. Design responsibility that is unclear, so nobody can say who owns a given decision. And a competence trail that was never recorded, since the regime rests on duty holders being able to show that those carrying out the work were competent to do it.

The Fire Safety Strategy prepared for the building sits at the centre of this and needs to be a live document rather than a planning stage artefact. It is fire engineering work, and a professional with the relevant competence has to take responsibility for it.

Change control during construction

Once approval is granted, changes are controlled rather than free. The regime distinguishes changes that must be recorded from those that require the Regulator's agreement before the work proceeds, with the more consequential category covering changes that affect how the building meets the requirements.

Two habits from traditional procurement cause problems here.

Value engineering after approval, where a substitution of a product or a detail is treated as a site decision, is exactly the kind of change the regime is designed to capture. And late contractor design development, which used to be resolved as work progressed, now has to be tested against the approved design.

Build the change control process into the contract, name who decides which category a change falls into, and price the programme risk of a change that has to wait for agreement. A contractor programme with no float around this is a programme that has not read the regime.

Gateway Three and occupation

At completion, an application is made to the Regulator, which assesses the finished building against the approved design and the recorded changes. The building cannot be occupied before the completion certificate is issued and before the building is registered.

Registration matters commercially. Occupation of a registered higher-risk building depends on the accountable person being identified and the required information being in place, so the ownership and management structure for the completed building needs deciding well before practical completion, not during the sales process.

Handover of the golden thread happens here too. Where the information has been kept properly from the start, this is administrative. Where it has not, this is where a project discovers the gap, at the worst possible moment for cash flow.

What it does to a residential programme

Three effects show up on every appraisal.

Design cost moves forward, because the resolution needed for Gateway Two arrives earlier in the fee profile.

The start on site date depends on a third party decision that cannot be accelerated by paying more, which changes how funding and pre-let or pre-sale commitments should be structured.

And the end date carries a new dependency, since revenue cannot begin until the completion certificate and registration are in place.

Where the site also has a construction logistics problem, the Construction Management Plan required by planning condition should be written knowing that the start date is contingent, rather than assuming a fixed mobilisation.

Aligning planning conditions with the gateway sequence

The two regimes are separate, and their timing assumptions can conflict. Watch for three things when the decision notice arrives.

1. Pre-commencement conditions that assume a start date the gateway process cannot support, and which may need an agreed extension of the implementation period.
2. Conditions requiring details to be approved by the council that overlap with matters the Regulator will consider, where the wording should avoid requiring two inconsistent answers.
3. The time limit for implementation, since a permission that expires while a Gateway Two application is pending is a serious problem.

Where a change required by the Regulator alters the approved plans, the planning route back is a non-material amendment under section 96A or a section 73 application, depending on the scale of the change. Raise the possibility with the case officer early rather than presenting it as a fait accompli.

The Fire Statement submitted at planning stage is where the alignment starts, and a statement written with the later gateways in mind saves rework. This is a report where qualified professional input is legally required under the Building Safety Act 2022 framework, so any AI-assisted draft is a starting point for that professional rather than a substitute.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which reports your scheme is likely to need. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. This is general guidance rather than legal advice, and the building safety regime continues to develop, so confirm the current requirements with the Regulator before relying on any of it.