Gateways two and three under the Building Safety Act

Planning permission does not let you start work on a higher-risk building. Gateway two does, and it is a hard stop: construction cannot begin until the Building Safety Regulator has granted building control approval. Gateway three is the second hard stop, because the building cannot be occupied until a completion certificate has been issued and the building registered.

Those two gateways sit under the Building Safety Act 2022 and the building control regime rather than the planning system, which is why they catch development teams who have treated the fire statement at gateway one as the end of the fire safety workstream.

The three gateway structure

Gateway one is planning. Article 9A of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 requires a fire statement with an application for development of a relevant building, and the Health and Safety Executive is a statutory consultee on those applications. That is where the Fire Statement belongs.

Gateway two is the point before construction. The client applies to the Building Safety Regulator for building control approval of the design, and no work may start until that approval is in place. Local authority building control and approved inspectors do not have jurisdiction over higher-risk buildings, so the familiar route of starting on site under an initial notice is not available.

Gateway three is the point before occupation. The client applies for a completion certificate, the Regulator assesses whether the building as built complies, and occupation follows registration of the building. The practical effect is that practical completion in the building contract and lawful occupation are no longer the same date.

Which buildings this applies to

A higher-risk building for these purposes is at least 18 metres in height or has at least seven storeys, and contains at least two residential units. Hospitals and care homes meeting the height or storey criteria are also within scope during design and construction.

So the trigger is the same height and storey test that brings a fire statement into the planning application. A scheme of two six storey blocks is outside the regime. Add a seventh storey to one of them and that block is inside it, with the design, the procurement route and the programme all affected.

What gateway two requires

The application has to present a design that demonstrates compliance, not a design intent. That means a developed fire strategy, structural design, the dutyholder arrangements and the competence declarations that go with them, and the start of the golden thread of information.

Four documents do most of the work. The fire and emergency file content, the structural design and its assumptions, a construction control plan setting out how compliance will be maintained during the works, and the change control plan. A Fire Safety Strategy prepared to BS 9991 or BS 9999 is a fire engineering document and has to come from someone with the relevant competence.

The dutyholder regime matters as much as the documents. Client, principal designer and principal contractor each carry duties under the amended Building Regulations, with competence requirements attached, and the Regulator can and does ask how the client satisfied itself of competence. Appointing on price alone is a documented risk at gateway two.

Change control during construction

This is the part most unfamiliar to teams used to local authority building control. Once approval is granted, changes fall into categories. Major changes need the Regulator's approval before they are made. Notifiable changes have to be notified. Everything else goes into a change control log that forms part of the golden thread.

Two consequences for the planning side. A change forced by a planning condition or by a discharge of conditions decision may be a major change requiring approval before it can be built, so the sequencing between the two regimes has to be planned rather than discovered. And a non-material amendment under section 96A or a variation under section 73 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 does not carry any weight with the Regulator, which assesses the change against the Building Regulations alone.

Plan the two consent streams on one programme. Teams that run them separately find out late that a facade change agreed with the planning officer sits outside the approved building control design.

What gateway three requires

The completion certificate application has to show that the building as constructed complies with the Building Regulations, supported by the as-built information, the change control record and the completed fire and emergency file and building regulations compliance statements.

Registration is separate. An occupied higher-risk building has to be registered with the Building Safety Regulator, and the principal accountable person is responsible for that, along with preparing a safety case report for the building in occupation.

Partial occupation needs planning for. Phased handover of a tall block is possible but it requires engagement with the Regulator rather than an assumption that the contractor can hand over floor by floor as they used to. Leasing programmes and funding drawdowns built on the old pattern are where the commercial pain lands.

The golden thread, in practice

The golden thread is the information about the building and its safety, held digitally, kept accurate and handed on. It starts at gateway two and continues through occupation.

What this means for a developer is that information management has to be specified in the appointments and the contract, with a named party responsible, a structured file format, and a process for keeping it current as changes are approved. Retro-fitting the golden thread at completion is the most expensive way to produce it, and gateway three is where that becomes obvious.

Programme implications worth pricing

Four lines to put in the appraisal before anything else.

1. The gateway two decision period, which is set by regulation for each application type. Check the published period rather than assuming the eight week pattern of local building control, and allow for requests for further information.
2. A design freeze earlier than the team is used to, because the approved design is the one that has to be built.
3. Time between practical completion and occupation for the gateway three assessment and registration.
4. Professional fees for the dutyholder roles, competence evidence and information management, which are new costs rather than a rebadging of old ones.

Finance and pre-letting assumptions need to reflect the third item in particular. A separate consent that gates the start of construction is not unique to tall buildings either, and the position on the SuDS approving body is worth knowing for the same programming reason.

How this interacts with planning

Keep three things in view. Gateway one is the only gateway the local planning authority touches, so a planning permission says nothing about whether gateway two will be granted. The Health and Safety Executive's gateway one comments are about the planning stage fire statement and do not pre-approve the design. And a design that satisfies the planning officer on appearance may need changes to satisfy the Regulator on means of escape, external wall construction or firefighting access, which is why the fire engineer should be in the room before the planning application is drawn rather than after.

Follow reform news on the planning law timeline, and check the current statutory position before relying on any summary, including this one. This is general guidance, not legal advice, so take advice from a qualified professional on any specific building.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval. For specialist technical reports, qualified professional input may be required, and a fire statement or fire safety strategy must be prepared by someone with the necessary fire engineering competence.