Luton scheme which drew council’s ire for gateway 2 delays finally gets green light

A 292-home mixed-use scheme in the middle of Luton that the local council publicly blamed the Building Safety Regulator for delaying has finally got the green light.

Over the summer, Roger Kirk director of property and infrastructure at Luton Borough Council told councillors its £136m Stage development, which includes three residential blocks, had been repeatedly held up by the regulator.

He told the committee: “The regulatory organisation has been unresponsive, despite lobbying at ministerial and senior civil servant level.”

The planning application for the Stage was submitted in July last year and had a statutory determination deadline of last November.

The council said the BSR had requested three deadline extensions but the regulator said these were due to “vital” building control processes introduced following the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

A spokesperson for the Health and Safety Executive, currently the umbrella organisation for BSR, told the BBC in June the Stage “failed to demonstrate that the buildings, if constructed as designed, would meet legal requirements”.

 >>See also: Is the Building Safety Regulator’s plan to tackle the backlog likely to succeed?

But these have now been resolved with the development getting gateway 2 approval allowing contractor Willmott Dixon to start work. The scheme will include 292 apartments, including 84 for affordable rent. It will also include commercial units and a new public garden square.

The scheme is part of the Luton Town Centre Masterplan and is being backed by £20m from the government’s Local Regeneration Fund, formerly known as the Levelling Up Fund.