Paul Dean, founder and managing director of Langley Construction Consultants, discusses the challenges surrounding development viability amongst complex regulatory requirements
The debate surrounding development viability often focuses on individual challenges such as rising construction costs, planning delays, labour shortages, and economic uncertainty. While each of these factors undoubtedly influences project delivery, in my experience the greater challenge lies in their cumulative impact, particularly when combined with an increasingly complex landscape of regulatory and compliance requirements.
The industry has rightly raised expectations around building safety, sustainability, biodiversity and social value. These are important and worthwhile objectives, but are we giving enough attention to their combined impact on project viability and investment decisions?
Every new requirement may be justified in its own right. The challenge is that developments are rarely asked to satisfy just one requirement.
Development viability is becoming more complex
Development has always involved balancing competing priorities. However, the level of complexity facing today’s developers is significantly greater than it was even a decade ago.
Alongside traditional development considerations, projects must now navigate Building Safety Act obligations, Biodiversity Net Gain, net-zero development targets, social value requirements, infrastructure contributions, and planning obligations. Each requirement has merit, but together they add layers of cost, risk, and complexity that can materially affect project viability and programme certainty.
We are increasingly seeing projects require more detailed commercial appraisal before investment decisions can be made. Assumptions that may have supported development appraisals in the past are no longer sufficient in today’s environment.
For developers, investors and funders, the key issue isn’t simply understanding what a scheme will cost to build. It is understanding how multiple obligations affect budgets, programme certainty, risk and ultimately return on investment.
Deliverability matters as much as aspiration
One of the risks facing the industry is that discussions around development increasingly focus on what should be achieved without giving equal consideration to how those outcomes will be delivered in practice.
The difficulty comes when these expectations converge within a single scheme, each carrying implications for programme, procurement, design and cost.
Aspiration is important. Deliverability remains fundamental.
A development that satisfies every policy objective on paper but cannot secure funding, navigate the planning process, manage commercial risk or generate an acceptable return ultimately fails to deliver the homes, workplaces and community benefits it was intended to create.
This is why project deliverability must sit alongside sustainability, safety and social outcomes when assessing development proposals. The question should not simply be whether individual requirements are justified, but whether they can realistically be achieved collectively within the commercial parameters of a viable scheme.
Successful projects have always required a balance between ambition and practicality. As expectations continue to increase, maintaining that balance is becoming one of the defining challenges of modern development.
The growing importance of early commercial advice
As development complexity increases, the value of early commercial advice becomes more significant.
Modern cost consultancy extends far beyond producing estimates or monitoring expenditure.
Today, cost consultants play an increasingly strategic role in helping clients understand development risk, assess project feasibility and make informed investment decisions.
In our experience, many of the most successful projects are those in which viability, risk, and compliance considerations are assessed early, before significant time and resources have been committed.
Early-stage feasibility studies, viability assessments and commercial appraisals allow developers to identify potential challenges before they become costly problems.
Through option appraisal and scenario testing, project teams can evaluate different approaches, understand potential compliance costs and assess the implications of alternative procurement and delivery strategies.
This process provides greater certainty, supports more informed decision-making and helps clients avoid costly surprises later in the development lifecycle.
A more strategic approach to development viability
The development sector has always adapted to change, and there is no reason to believe it will not continue to do so. However, the conversation around development viability needs to evolve.
Rather than assessing individual regulations in isolation, the industry should place greater emphasis on understanding their collective impact on commercial viability, risk and project outcomes.
Developers, investors, planners and policymakers all have a role to play in ensuring that legitimate objectives remain deliverable in practice.
The biggest challenge facing development today is not any single regulation or cost pressure. It is the cumulative impact of multiple requirements that are individually justified, but collectively more difficult to deliver.
The question is no longer simply whether a project can be built, but whether it can be delivered while meeting every expectation placed upon it.
For developers operating in today’s increasingly complex environment, understanding viability requires more than cost planning alone. It requires a clear view of risk, feasibility, compliance requirements and deliverability.
That is where experienced cost consultants can provide the greatest value: helping clients navigate competing priorities, make informed decisions and create projects that are not only desirable, but financially viable and genuinely deliverable.
Private developers, in particular, assume significant financial risk when bringing forward new schemes. While higher standards, stronger sustainability credentials and improved social outcomes are important objectives, development must also remain commercially viable. Without the prospect of a reasonable return, investment will inevitably reduce, and ultimately we won’t deliver the projects we need for the future.
As expectations continue to grow, the industry’s challenge is not simply to build better projects. It is to ensure those projects remain viable enough to be built at all.
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