Viki James, managing director, consents management at Ardent, explains the preparation needed between achieving Development Consent Orders and actually delivering a project
The government has set an ambition to deliver decisions on at least 150 major infrastructure projects during this Parliament. But will 150 Development Consent Orders (DCOs) mean 150 projects moving successfully into delivery?
Will the country get the green energy infrastructure, nuclear power stations, hydrogen pipelines, roads and reservoirs those consents are intended to enable – or simply 150 planning permissions?
Achieving a DCO is not reaching the summit. It is reaching base camp. You’ve done a huge amount of preparation to get there, but this is where you check you have the right equipment, supplies, and oxygen for the climb ahead.
The same applies to major infrastructure. A significant, but largely unrecognised, gap remains between securing consent and delivering a project. Consent needs to be integrated throughout the journey, not acquired, handed over, and treated as a completed task.
Different languages, same destination
Preparation largely happens during planning, but the summit is the infrastructure itself.
Planning and construction work toward the same ultimate outcome; one cannot exist without the other, but they have different remits, speak different languages, and can be working toward very different immediate outcomes.
The consenting process is focused on securing permission within defined parameters, requirements and commitments. Construction is focused on delivering safely, efficiently and cost-effectively. Joining the two together can be like trying to connect Lego with Meccano.
After a DCO examination concludes, the planning team’s role changes significantly. Instead of promoting and defending the scheme at examination, attention turns towards discharging Requirements and preparing for delivery.
Meanwhile, construction teams can be handed an enormous body of documentation. On nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs), this can run to between 60,000 and 80,000 pages. Simply telling a contractor to “comply with the DCO” therefore vastly underestimates the challenge.
Planning itself is not a barrier. Properly understood and respected, it is an enabler. The problem arises when the drive, and the glory, of getting something built becomes disconnected from an understanding of everything that went into securing permission in the first place.
Bridging the gap
A myth remains that you can receive a DCO decision on a Friday and start construction on Monday.
In reality, construction teams can be procured against design and delivery programmes that have not sufficiently accounted for the DCO. Problems can then emerge when alternative methodologies or sequencing would save time or money but conflict with commitments already made through the consenting process.
Neither side is failing in its remit. Consent teams are there to secure consent – a process which does not always require detailed scrutiny of exactly how something will ultimately be built. Construction teams build it safely, quickly, and cost-effectively.
As I was once told, you can build almost anything with enough time and money. The challenge is joining those two remits together so that the same infrastructure outcome can be achieved in practice.
That is where consent integration comes in: creating continuous feedback between consenting and planning teams and their construction counterparts, rather than a handover from one distinct entity to another. Consent should be actively managed as a living part of a project throughout its lifespan.
There is also a valuable opportunity between examination and construction. Following the end of examination is a six-month statutory determination period, followed by a less clearly defined pre-commencement period before work starts on site.
Used wisely, the determination period can help maximise, and potentially shorten, the pre-commencement phase by translating commitments, obligations, and compliance requirements into something tangible for delivery teams.
Crucially, this is also often when members of the consent team are released onto other projects, meaning valuable knowledge can be lost just when it is needed to bridge the transition into construction.
An emerging discipline
Consent integration is still an emerging discipline, but it can make this transition significantly smoother.
Sitting between consent management, planning, legal, environment and land on one side and construction and delivery on the other, it can prevent small gaps in understanding from becoming much larger problems.
It requires a specialist skill set: a detailed understanding of planning and legal requirements, alongside enough technical and construction knowledge to understand how a project will actually be delivered.
People across the industry are undoubtedly already doing this. But if the UK is serious about accelerating infrastructure, we need to recognise consent integration as a distinct part of project delivery.
Securing a DCO is a major achievement and an important summit in its own right. The challenge is ensuring the planning expertise that got us there doesn’t get left behind at base camp, but stays with the project as it moves into delivery and helps shape the infrastructure the country needs.
