Peers have called for targetted changes to the Building Safety Regulator process after concluding that widespread delays are stalling high-rise housing, blocking refurbishments, and stranding residents in unsafe buildings for longer.

A hard-hitting House of Lords committee report urges ministers to introduce a more staged approach to Gateway 2 approvals, allowing design and build contractors to progress construction while detailed design work continues.

Peers also demanded that non-safety-critical refurbishment work in high-rise buildings such as internal bathroom or kitchen upgrades be handed back to local authorities after finding BSR multidisciplinary teams tied up reviewing “low-risk, low-value” works while critical cladding and structural cases queue for months.

The Building Safety Regular inquiry committee says staged gateways would rescue the industry’s design and build process.

Dame Judith Hackitt, architect of the Building Safet Act reforms who gave evidence to the Lord inquiry, said she would support a shift to further staged approvals.

“We might end up with a Gateway 1.5 or 2.5 process as the building is designed and built in stages,” she told the cross party committe.

Under the proposal contractors would need lock down critical fire and structural features early, while BSR would allow secondary, non-critical elements to progress in parallel.

The report says it would restore consistency with design and build procurement, where certain design packages develop during construction and avoid unnecessary redesign costs that ripple through supply chains.

The BSR is urged to publish clear guidance on what must be approved pre-construction and what can follow as staged releases.

The Lords also push for scrutiny of low-risk refurbishment work in towers to be handed back to councils.

Peers say it “strains credulity” that highly qualified BSR fire and structural engineers are currently being used to sign off bathroom refurbishments in high rise building improvements.

The report recommends reclassifying works so only Category A safety-critical items stay with BSR.

It recommends local authority building control could take on low-risk Category B jobs to free the BSR’s scarce expert resource to focus on genuinely dangerous buildings and unblock the remediation backlog.

The Lords inquiry supported many of the recent reforms to the Building Safety approval process including batching of similar schemes to allow faster approval by in-house  multidisciplinary teams.

But the Lords also warned that skills shortages of registered building inspectors continued to impact approvals.

Committee chair Baroness Taylor of Bolton said: “The introduction of the Building Safety Regulator was a necessary and welcome step.

“However, the scale of the delays caused by the BSR has stretched far beyond the regulator’s statutory timelines for building control decisions. This is unacceptable.

“We welcome that the Government and the BSR are now acting to try and make practical improvements, but this will not address the anxiety and frustration that residents and companies have experienced.

“It does not improve safety to delay vital remediation and refurbishments, nor to deter the delivery of new housing in high-rise buildings.

“We expect to see further action from the Government and the BSR to ensure that construction projects in high-rise buildings can be brought forward more quickly, without compromising on vital safety improvements.”