The YIMBY Initiative has released a research report making the case for reforming the current Building Safety Regulator (BSR), in order to free up urban development. Safe and Abundant; Reforming The BSR To Resolve The Urban Housing Crisis makes the argument that although the creation of the BSR in the wake of the Grenfell Tragedy was a necessary step, in its current form it is acting as a major barrier to housing development.
The report is backed by and features forewords from a number of MPs across the political spectrum, including Richard Tice MP (Reform UK), Vikki Slade MP (Liberal Democrats), Mike Reader MP (Labour Party) and Gareth Bacon MP (Conservative). The report also features a foreword from Jay Morton, Director at Bell Philips Architects. Despite differing viewpoints, all forewords put their weight behind the report and it’s recommendations, and agree that the BSR currently is actively holding back development.
The report laments the stagnant rate of housebuilding since the introduction of the BSR. Boasting statistics such as London housing starts falling 38% in Q 2025, tall building permissions falling from 21 to 6 between 2023 and 2024 and approvals “routinely” taking 25–40 weeks against a gateway 2 target of 12 weeks, the report argues that the BSR’s methods of absolute safety through absolute process have come at the worst time possible for the UK. The cause of the delays is not the BSR’s pursuit of safety, the report argues, but rather it’s method of pursuing it.
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The report maps a history of building safety through a literature review of past measures, the Grenfell Tragedy and its impact, institutional changes and reform and the BSR’s role today, before making a number of recommendations.
Context before Grenfell
The report first casts its eye backwards to understand the evolution of building safety in the UK leading up to the Grenfell tragedy. The report carries out a literature review mapping the most significant changes in UK building safety regulation since 2010, with a focus on reforms across all building classes.
The report finds that prior to recent reforms, building safety in England was primarily governed by the Building Act 1984 and the Building Regulations 2010. These regulations set minimum safety standards for the industry and offered updated guidance through approved documents, with standards enforced by building control bodies and fire safety falling under separate regulatory reforms. The pre-Grenfell environment, however, grew to be shaped by a persistent push towards de-regulation. Flexible, industry-led standards eventually led to systemically weak building safety controls, researchers have argued.
The report points out a previous fire that exposed insufficient attention to fire safety. The Lakanal House fire claimed six lives in 2009, a fire consuming a London tower block. The fire was subject to an enquiry similarly to Grenfell, an inquiry that led to the coroner to urge the government to rectify and update fire safety guidance in 2013. Although the government acknowledged the tragedy of the Lakanal House fire, this tightening of fire safety standards failed to materialise in any meaningful terms.
Grenfell and its aftermath
The tragedy of the Grenfell fire is well known, and the echoes of that tragedy are still felt today. 72 people lost their lives in a catastrophic blaze, as flammable cladding panels turned a single flame into an inferno. These deaths were preventable, and it was the government and wider industry’s lack of oversight that led to such a loss. In the words of Sir Martin Moore-Bick (chair of the Grenfell Public Inquiry), the disaster resulted from “decades of failure by the UK central government and the construction industry to understand and act on the dangers of incorporating combustible materials into external walls of high-rise buildings.”
The fire rightly ushered in an urgent reformation of building safety in Britain. interim changes included a ban on combustible cladding for all high-rise buildings, which was implemented by 2018, as well as guidance in Approved Document B also being strengthened for buildings between 11 and 18 meters, whilst a number of inquiries and evaluations worked to understand the root cause and negligence that led to the tragedy. In May 2018, Dame Judith Hackitt’s report “Building a Safer Future” was published, concluding that the entire regulatory system for building safety was “not fit for purpose.” Hackitt identified a culture of complacency and confusion: unclear responsibilities, inadequate competency among practitioners, and a lack of effective sanctions for non-compliance.
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Hackitt called for a new framework of accountability spanning the whole building life cycle. Key recommendations included establishing a new statutory regulator for building safety, creating a more robust dutyholder regime (mirroring the approach of Construction Design & Management regulations) to assign clear responsibility at each project stage, and adopting a risk-based approach that would initially target high-risk residential buildings. These recommendations went on to influence the sweeping number of reforms that would be made in their wake.
The BSR is a cornerstone of this new regulatory landscape. The BSR became formally active in 2023 and represents a new institutional approach to governing building safety. According to the HSE, the BSR’s purpose is threefold: (1) to regulate higher-risk buildings (implementing and enforcing the stricter rules for design, construction, and occupation of HRBs), (2) to raise safety standards of all buildings, and (3) to promote and improve competence among professionals in design, construction, and building control.
Assessment & recommendations
The report claims that in it’s current form, the BSR is not fit to handle the scale and complexity of applications that are required to fix the urban housing crisis. The report makes an initial recommendation to turn the BSR into a Fitch or Standard & Poor’s type regulator that stands equidistant between government and industry. The regulator, following investment from industry and run by a board of Government appointed experts, should have the resources to hire permanent teams of experts to administer regulations. These standing Multi-Disciplinary Teams should be well-remunerated and resourced to execute their jobs in a timely manner.
A number of other recommendations conclude the report. Key amongst these is the introduction of an electronic file management system, aiming to streamline manual processes and speed up approval times for applicants. The report also recommends the BSR should create a “white-list” for certain entities, who utilise universally used proprietary materials in the supply chain, and fast track these within the application.
The report concludes that the BSR currently, in theory, provides the blueprint to build “the safest building in the world”, but in reality blocks these safe buildings from being delivered. The conversation surrounding the BSR will always be nuanced and sensitive, as any conversation stemming from such a tragedy should be. The housing crisis currently gripping the UK is a tragedy in it’s own right, and the argument is surely one to be heard if amendments could be made to preserve high-safety standards whilst also streamlining approval processes. What can not be aloud to happen is to solve the housing crisis with an influx of buildings that pose the same threat that Grenfell Tower did, a threat that was allowed to fester until it made itself known. The full report and recommendations can be found at thinkhouse.org.
