Is this still just a London problem?
For a while, that is exactly what it was. Gateway 2 applied to high-rise, high-risk buildings, most of them in London, and the rest of the country carried on much as before. Specs got broken. Waterproofing got treated as something to sort out later.
That is changing faster than people expect. It has rolled out in Cardiff. It is moving in Birmingham. And the red tape is already reaching sites that would not typically fall under the restrictions at all.
So how far does it go?
I am not going to make predictions I cannot stand behind. But I will tell you what I am seeing. Developers are now asking us gateway-level questions on jobs that are not gateway jobs. The technical submittals, the documentation, the preparation we built for one type of project have quietly become what customers expect on everything.
In a few years, I do not think it would be a stretch to say all structures will be held to something close to this standard. If you are building for today’s regulation, you are already behind.
Where does Atal fit?
Structural waterproofing is about two per cent of the cost of a building and something like eighty per cent of the risk. That is why architects and engineers hand it over. Most do not carry the PI insurance for it, and I do not blame them.
We do carry it. We take that responsibility off the design team, we get involved early, and we help procure the project so it moves through the red tape without becoming somebody’s headache.
Does it actually work?
That is a fair question, and the honest answer is that talk is cheap in this industry. So here is the evidence. We are five for five on gateway submissions. Five projects put through, five approved. We are hoping to make it six.
The first one mattered more to me than the money. It proved we were part of the process, not on the outside of it.
What now?
If you have a project coming that will touch any of this, come and talk to us early. Not when the groundworker is on site. Early.
We are running a Gateway 2 webinar to walk through what the process actually asks for and where teams typically come unstuck. Get in touch and we will save you a place.
Whether it’s a Gateway 2 project, a housing site, or a smaller job where you just need the right product at the right price, the goal is the same. We want your build to go well. That’s it.
If you’d like to talk through a project, you know where we are.
The best part of my month is meeting customers. Set up a time for us to meet below.
Always a human. Always available.
