Four stories landed this week that are really about the same thing underneath: how long things take. Burnley has opened another selective licensing consultation just weeks after a neighbouring council’s scheme survived a second High Court challenge, the Building Safety Regulator says its worst approval delays have halved in a year, a modest cladding-remediation fund opens its application window in eight days, and the first hard numbers on what is replacing Section 21 show notice periods getting longer, not shorter. None of it is dramatic on its own. Stacked together, it is a reminder that regulation increasingly plays out in weeks and months rather than in headlines.
Burnley’s licensing consultation, and the pattern behind it
Burnley Council opened a consultation this week inviting residents, landlords, businesses and community organisations to comment on proposals for selective licensing across three areas of the borough, running until 18 October, as Landlord Today reports. The council already operates two selective licensing schemes covering parts of the town — one over Burnley Wood, Healey Wood and Leyland Road running to 2027, another over Trinity, Daneshouse, Gannow, Queensgate and Padiham running to 2030, as the council’s own licensing pages confirm. Councillor Howard Baker was careful to stress the process is genuinely open: “No final decision has been made. This consultation is about listening, looking at the evidence and making sure residents, landlords, businesses and partners have the chance to help shape the next steps.”
My read: treat that framing with a pinch of salt. A council that already credits its existing schemes with cutting empty homes and anti-social behaviour, then opens a fresh consultation on further areas, is rarely genuinely undecided about the direction of travel. It also lands a fortnight after Thurrock’s selective licensing scheme survived its second High Court challenge, with the claimant ordered to pay £7,500 in costs, as Thurrock Council confirms. Two failed judicial reviews in one borough send a signal well beyond it: challenging a scheme in court is an expensive way to lose, and councils know it.
If you’re buying, letting or instructing a survey anywhere near a designated area — in Burnley or the growing list of towns doing the same thing — check the licensing register before you complete, not after. An unlicensed let in a designated area is a criminal offence and can trigger a rent repayment order running to a full year’s rent, regardless of whether you knew the scheme existed.
The Building Safety Regulator’s approval times have halved — for some applicants
The Building Safety Regulator’s latest Gateway 2 transparency data, covering the 12 weeks to 1 August 2026, shows building control approvals running at 82% across all categories, with existing-building remediation approvals at 85% nationally and 92% in London, as Specification Online reports. The standout figure is the Innovation Unit, BSR’s dedicated fast-track route for applicants who engage before submitting: since it was set up in August 2025, its approval rate has more than doubled from 39% to 91%, and its median determination time has fallen from 43 weeks to 22. Acting chief executive Charlie Pugsley says the pace hasn’t come at the expense of scrutiny: “We will never allow faster decision-making to compromise the safety of the people who will live, visit and work in these buildings.”
My read: the headline number describes a specific cohort, not the whole system. Internal refurbishment work on the standard track — roughly half of all Gateway 2 decisions — is still running at a 32-week median across 166 decisions, as Construction Magazine’s analysis of the same data notes, though applications actually submitted during 2026 are clearing in roughly 16 weeks, suggesting a legacy backlog is what’s dragging the average down rather than the process itself stalling. Quoting a client a blanket 22-week Gateway 2 programme without checking which track and cohort their scheme actually sits in is the kind of optimistic assumption that blows a build programme apart six months in.
Anyone advising on a higher-risk building scheme — new build, conversion or major remediation — should be pushing the client toward BSR’s Innovation Unit and pre-application engagement as a default, not an afterthought. That is demonstrably where the time saving lives; the standard track has only improved for the newest applications, not the ones already sitting in the system.
Still worth your attention: the cladding fund for buildings under 11 metres
MHCLG and Homes England confirmed last month that the Cladding Safety Scheme for buildings under 11 metres opens for applications on 17 August, an eight-week window, as the gov.uk guidance sets out. It funds remediation on eligible low-rise buildings of two or more dwellings, private or social, where a Fire Risk Appraisal of External Walls carried out to PAS 9980:2022 identifies unsafe cladding presenting a serious life-critical fire risk. Leaseholders and residents cannot apply directly — only the building owner or responsible entity can — and funding is prioritised by risk rather than guaranteed to every building that qualifies.
This isn’t breaking news — the announcement is a month old — but it’s worth flagging now because the bottleneck is the FRAEW, not the application form. Government itself expects relatively low application numbers in this band, on the basis that buildings under 11 metres are less likely to have widespread cladding risk, but for the ones that do qualify, a properly commissioned PAS 9980 assessment takes real weeks to arrange and complete. Eight weeks disappears fast once the first two have gone on waiting for a suitably qualified assessor’s diary to clear.
If you manage or own a qualifying block and don’t already have a FRAEW in hand, commission it now rather than waiting for the window to open on the 17th. Arriving at week six of an eight-week application period with an assessment still in progress is how buildings that should qualify end up missing out.
The first real data on what’s replacing Section 21
Landlord Action had its busiest month for enquiries in nearly a year in July, with new instructions up 28% on July 2025 and 35% of enquiries converting into instructions, as Landlord Today reports. Roughly a third of that was landlords rushing to issue possession proceedings on Section 21 notices before the 31 July transitional deadline. More useful is the breakdown of what’s actually driving new cases now the transition has passed: 39% rent-arrears grounds, 30% Ground 1A — the landlord selling — 8% Ground 1 for landlord or family occupation, and 29% everything else. Founder Paul Shamplina says the pressure was “clear from the number of landlords contacting us throughout the month,” and that the new system is “more evidence-led” because “landlords must be able to demonstrate that the ground they are relying on genuinely applies.”
My read: the Ground 1A figure is the one that matters for anyone valuing or surveying a tenanted property. Nearly a third of current possession activity is landlords using the sale ground, which needs four months’ notice rather than the old Section 21 minimum of two, and cannot be served at all within a tenancy’s first twelve months. A “vacant possession expected” instruction on a tenanted buy-to-let now has a realistic floor of four months from notice to keys, not two, and that’s before any court time if the tenant doesn’t leave willingly.
If you’re surveying or valuing a tenanted property being sold with vacant possession in mind, ask when notice was or will be served and under which ground before committing to a timeline in your report. Assuming the old Section 21 clock is a good way to hand a client a completion date that quietly becomes impossible.
What I’d actually do
- Buying or letting near a selective licensing area? Check the register before completion, not after — courts keep backing councils that expand these schemes, and not knowing isn’t a defence.
- Advising on a higher-risk building scheme? Push the client into BSR’s Innovation Unit and pre-application engagement — that’s where the 22-week turnaround actually lives, not the standard track.
- Own or manage a low-rise block with legacy cladding? Commission the FRAEW to PAS 9980:2022 now, ahead of the 17 August funding window — the assessment, not the form, is what eats the eight weeks.
- Surveying a tenanted buy-to-let for a vacant-possession sale? Confirm the ground and notice date before committing to a completion timeline — Ground 1A needs four months, not the old two.
If today’s notes have you weighing up a purchase in a licensed area, a higher-risk building scheme working through Gateway 2, or a tenanted buy-to-let with a vacant-possession sale in mind, the practice offers full building surveys and Buy to Let Surveys across the South East. Get in touch.
Small print. General commentary, not advice for your specific circumstances — regulations, schemes and deadlines change, and your property is not the average property. Sources linked were accurate when read on 9 August 2026.