The Intermediary – October 2025 - Flipbook - Page 50
Round-table.
From bottlenecks
Jessica O’Connor outlines the key points of a panel discussion
covering challenges and opportunities for the development
market as it battles new legislation and changing demand
S
ince the introduction of the
Building Safety Act and the
now-infamous Gateway process
in 2022, developers and lenders
have faced a tangle of regulation,
uncertainty, and rising costs.
At a round-table hosted by The
Intermediary and Downing, chaired by managing
editor Jessica Bird, industry figures shared a candid
discussion. From stalled deals to the asset classes
offering hope, their message was clear: the rules
have changed, but appetite has not gone away.
T H E G AT E WAY G AU N T L E T
The approval system, introduced to
improve building safety and accountability,
has instead added major time, cost and
complexity to development projects –
fundamentally reshaping how schemes are
designed, funded and delivered.
What was once a relatively straightforward
path from planning to build is now a threestage approval system that has added time and
complexity to almost every project.
For many in development finance – from
architects to advisers and lenders – it is not just
another regulatory hurdle, but a full re-engineering
of how schemes are designed and funded. For
Doug Bowley, associate director at Downing, the
challenge is as much about pacing as paperwork.
He says: “It’s reforming the whole way the
construction industry works, and clearly, it’s a new
process, so it’s adding a lot more expense and a
lot more time to the process. The time factor, in
particular, is an unknown quantity, and that’s one
of the teething issues with developers.”
That reform is not just administrative. Lenders
and developers now face the task of committing
to design and cost information well before
certainty on approval, or even viability, can be
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The Intermediary | October 2025
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
achieved. As James Cooper, technical director at
DLA Architecture, explains, the new system has
reversed the usual process.
Cooper adds: “The planning application process
(Gateway 1) is mostly the same as it was, but
higher-risk buildings (HRBs) require you to have
a contractor appointed before you make an
application for Gateway 2.
“You make your application with a substantially
complete design – such that those drawings could
just be placed with a contractor and built. Then
you wait.”
Previously, the relationship with building
regulators was iterative. Under Gateway, this
has been replaced by a single make-or-break
submission. Cooper says: “Everything has to be
pre-done and drawn, so the detail is much greater.
The demand on the teams is much greater.”
While the system was designed to improve
accountability and safety, it has also created
bottlenecks. For funders, this translates into rising
costs and additional risk.
Will Powell, investment director at Downing,
says: “The average turnaround time is about 36
weeks, so the best part of a year – and we’ve seen
huge cost inflation in the build cost market over
the last few years.
“You’re having to get a contractor to sign up to a
project at a certain price and then say, come what
may, in 12 months they’re still comfortable with
this price, which no contractor in a free market is
realistically going to do.”
The result is a market caught between good
intentions and poor mechanics. Powell says: “My
take on this reform is that it’s obviously come from
