Regulation
The Building Safety Act 2022, explained
The primary piece of post-Grenfell building safety legislation. Creates the Building Safety Regulator, defines Higher-Risk Buildings, introduces the Gateway process, and imposes the Golden Thread requirement.
Applies to
- Higher-Risk Buildings: residential buildings 18m or 7 storeys and above with at least two dwellings
- Design and construction dutyholders on all buildings under revised Building Regulations
- In-occupation obligations for the Accountable Person
Key dates
- April 2022: Building Safety Act receives Royal Assent.
- April 2023: Building Safety Regulator (BSR) established.
- October 2023: Gateway process live for HRB applications.
- April 2024: Golden Thread and safety case obligations applied to occupied HRBs.
What the Act does
The BSA is the response to the Grenfell Tower fire. It creates a new regulator (the BSR), a new category of building (Higher-Risk Buildings) with a stricter approval regime (the Gateway process), and a new dutyholder framework that survives handover into occupation.
The intent is that responsibility for building safety is explicit and transferable, not diffuse and lost between organisations at each project stage.
The three Gateways
Gateway 1: planning stage. Fire safety must be considered at planning. Gateway 2: pre-construction. The BSR must approve the building's design before construction can begin. Gateway 3: post-construction. The BSR must certify that the building has been built to the approved design before it can be occupied.
Gateway 2 is where most HRB projects have run into trouble: the BSR has been more demanding than the industry expected, and applications have been rejected or delayed at scale.
The dutyholder framework
During design and construction: Client, Principal Designer, Principal Contractor. Each has explicit safety responsibilities under revised Building Regulations. During occupation: Accountable Person (typically the freeholder or managing agent) with the safety case duty and the Golden Thread maintenance duty.
The Act made these roles legal duties with personal liability, not just contractual roles.
Common questions
Does the BSA apply to non-HRB residential?
Some parts do (the revised dutyholder regime under Building Regulations, competence requirements, new building control processes). The HRB-specific parts (Gateways, safety case, Accountable Person duties) apply only to HRBs. But the industry expectation is that BSA principles will progressively influence non-HRB regulation.
How long does Gateway 2 take?
Statutory determination period is 12 weeks, but in practice the BSR has often needed longer to process complex submissions, and multiple resubmissions are common. Programme in months, not weeks, and get the submission right first time.
How does Ubrix help with BSA compliance?
Ubrix is where the Golden Thread evidence gets built, plot by plot. That evidence supports Gateway submissions during construction and passes to the Accountable Person at handover. See our Golden Thread explainer above.
Related explainers
- Awaab's Law Part of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023, Awaab's Law sets legally binding timescales for social landlords to investigate and fix hazards in tenants' homes, particularly damp and mould. Applies in phases from 2025 to 2027.
- Building Safety Levy A tax on new residential development in England, introduced to fund the removal of unsafe cladding on existing buildings. Charged per square metre of internal floor area at Building Control sign-off. Rate varies by local authority and whether the site is previously developed land.
- BNG A planning requirement for new development in England to deliver a measurable 10% uplift in biodiversity value, calculated against a pre-development baseline. Applied to major applications from February 2024 and to minor applications from April 2024.
See how Ubrix captures the evidence you need.
Ubrix stores compliance evidence against the plot, not on shared drives. Timestamps, sign-offs and documents come out as an audit trail on demand.