Some Lessons Learnt following a year of Gateway 2 Applications & our first Approvals from the BSR

Following on several months from initial applications for our role as Gateway Advisor we are now seeing the first couple of applications being approved ‘subject to requirements’ for some prominent new build HRB projects for Tier 1’s in London. Whilst these have been projects, we have acted as Gateway Advisor on from mid RIBA stage 3 and supported with all accompanying documents including co-ordination of the Building Regulations Compliance Statement- we have had earlier successes for approval for small remedial projects much earlier on where our role was simply to review small submission right before they go in.

Whilst I can’t share all the finer details due to IP rights and client confidentiality, I wanted to highlight some simple tips which may be useful.

Splitting Applications

This has been a hot topic from day one, predominantly among architects but also across other design teams, who are often pushing for applications to be grouped together to reduce workload and duplication. However, there is clearly no basis in legislation or guidance to link applications on the grounds being presented.

Luckily, we have always stuck to our guns and, as confirmed by Neil Hope-Collins in a recent Building Safety Regulator webinar, the basis for splitting applications is clear. However, the reason I raise this point is because certain projects have gone on to gain approval despite being incorrectly grouped. How these applications have progressed that far is beyond me—particularly as, in the earlier days, the opposite was true, where applications were being rejected for not being sufficiently split.

The MDTs assessing applications should get a real grip on this, as it is creating an uneven playing field.

On the other hand, another project team has been told their project is too large as several blocks are in the single application, the first approach was to assign two MDT's but the project is now under scrutiny as it is 'too large' to assess and it is recommended it should be put in as a staged application- obviously this is absolutely ludicrous as a staged application should be the decision of a project team and the legal basis and guidance deemed that project as one application. I n addition to this there was no advice on staged applications at the point of application.

Folder and Content Schedule

We have seen problems where following guidance can lead to the BSR being unable to download information, causing several issues, delays, and repeated requests for information.

On the first project I was involved in, the team took it upon themselves to capture screenshots of every upload on the portal in case of any glitches. This proved valuable, as there was initial discussion around rejection when the MDT believed documents had not been uploaded.

There has also been some industry discussion (none involving our projects, of course) about gaming the system by uploading corrupt files at the submission deadline (following RFIs), then replacing them with “debugged” files the following Monday.

Co-ordinating the BRCS

This task should not be taken lightly. For teams completing this for the first time, it is easy to underestimate how much time is required to produce a robust BRCS.

From a Gateway Advisory perspective, there is a wide range of factors to manage—from ownership and level of detail to incorporating CDP package information, as well as simpler aspects which can still jeopardise a project if done incorrectly, such as formatting and presentation.

Level of Detail

It is important to remember that the legal requirements of the BRCS must be satisfied; it is not sufficient to state that the answer is contained within another document. At the same time, the term “element” is not clearly defined in legislation, so it is important to consider as many relevant elements as possible.

We look forwards to hearing about approval for another Project early next month.

All opinions expressed are the Director’s (Mandeep Singh) own and remember if you require support Golden Thread BIM are always readily available.