The head of the Construction Leadership Council has warned MPs that delays gaining building safety regulator approvals on projects are now one of three major blockages to delivering Government housing targets.

Mark Reynolds, co-chair of the CLC, was giving evidence to MPs on the Housing Committee investigating whether Government housing targets can be met.

He said that Gateway 2 approvals needed to start construction had joined planning and nutrient neutrality issues as the chief blockers of delivery.

Reynolds warned that long delays in gaining sign-off for fire safety design was forcing a wave of layoffs in construction.

According to the Building Safety Regulations, a BSR Gateway 2 approval should take 12 weeks for a new higher-risk building project and 8 weeks for work on an existing HRB.

Reynolds warned watchdog MPs: “It’s 24 to 28 weeks [to get BSR approval], and some are taking up to 40 to 48 weeks.

“People have been laid off. People are losing their jobs over this.”

Reynolds cited two projects – one in London and Leeds of 500 plus homes – that had taken over 48 weeks to get the Building Safety Regulator approval to start construction.

He said both of the schemes – one for a residential social landlord and the other a private developer – had both incurred over £1.5m in extra costs because of delayed process.

Reynolds warned that an acute a shortage of sufficiently qualified professionals needed to form the multidisciplinary teams required to vet and assess fire safety designs was holding up the process.

He told the committee: “We need more multidisciplinary teams to be appointed more quickly. Its taking 9-12 weeks to get the multidisciplinary teams in place because there are just not enough of them.”

“We are working with the BSR. We have set up a task and finish group to try and improve the process,” he said.

“It’s a new organisation, First of all I have sympathy with Philip White [head of the BSR] and his team, it’s got a new computer system, it’s got to go through new regulations and the industry doesn’t quite understand what it should be doing.

“So there is a learning process. What we need is to get the guidance through for the industry and the industry needs to learn that guidance.”