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BSR Applications

Since the Building Safety Act, building work on a higher-risk building in England goes through the Building Safety Regulator, not the local authority. MVV prepares and supports BSR building control applications and delivers the work itself: one team from compliance documentation to completion, working alongside specialist fire and structural engineering partners.

BSR Applications in London, designed and built by MVV

What is a BSR application?

A BSR application is an application for building control approval made to the Building Safety Regulator, the regime the Building Safety Act 2022 created for higher-risk buildings: buildings at least 18 metres or seven storeys tall with two or more residential units. For a new building this is Gateway 2, and it is a hard stop: construction cannot lawfully start until the regulator approves the application under regulation 4 of the Higher-Risk Buildings Procedures Regulations 2023. Work on an existing higher-risk building follows the same discipline under regulation 12.

Who needs one? More people than you would think

Developers of new high-rise residential schemes know they need Gateway 2. What catches people out is existing buildings: refurbishments, alterations and structural work inside a residential block of seven storeys or more also go through the regulator rather than the council or a private route. If you are planning serious works to a flat, a penthouse, common parts or the fabric of a higher-risk building in London, a BSR application is part of your project whether or not anyone has mentioned it yet.

How long does it take in 2026?

The statutory target for a decision is 12 weeks, and the market learned quickly that reality was different: through 2025, decisions on new-build applications commonly took 25 to 40 weeks. The turnaround since is measurable in the regulator's own published data: as of 31 August 2026, new-build approvals run at a 22-week median with a 92 percent approval rate, and internal works applications submitted in 2026 are approved at a median of 16 weeks. The same data shows the cost of getting it wrong, with more than a fifth of internal works applications rejected, at a median of 24 weeks each. The practical lesson has not changed: the fastest applications are the complete ones. And from 1 October 2026 the Building Safety Levy applies to building control applications for certain residential buildings, so a rejected and resubmitted application costs real money as well as months.

Why applications get rejected

The regulator's published guidance is blunt: an application must demonstrate compliance clearly and comprehensively, with a direct line of sight between every aspect of the building and the regulation, standard or code it complies with. Applications fail on gaps: fire strategies that do not match the drawings, structural information that stops a storey short, compliance statements that assert rather than evidence. Assembling that golden thread of information is most of the work, and it is design work, not paperwork.

What MVV brings

MVV is a design and build contractor, so the people preparing the compliance case are the people who will build it. We have delivered this class of work across London for years: the conversion of a Borough High Street building into six flats and a commercial space with a new roof storey, a six-flat development on Fulham Road, apartment refurbishments in blocks from Park Lane to Belsize Park, and commercial conversions where fire compliance decides the programme. We work alongside E.A.L Fire and Safety Solutions on fire engineering and Bini Struct-E on structures to produce application-ready documentation: drawings, specifications and compliance statements that describe the building you will actually get. One accountable team through design, the application and the works themselves, with the dutyholder responsibilities the Act creates taken seriously from day one.

BSR Applications across London

Thinking about BSR applications? Every job is different, so we price it with you.

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Guides on this work

Straight answers on cost, planning and process, with costs from typical jobs priced on our estimator.