Planning approval is often seen as the biggest milestone in a project.
It feels like progress. It feels like certainty.
In reality, it’s usually the point where the risk starts to increase.
Up to that stage, most things are still relatively controlled. You’re working with early assumptions, indicative costs, and ideas that haven’t been tested properly yet.
Once planning is approved, that starts to change.
Quotes come in and decisions begin to carry real cost.
The project shifts from “what could this cost?” to “what is this actually going to cost?”
That shift happens quite quickly.
The difficulty is that many projects are still being judged against the same early assumptions they started with.
That’s where things begin to move.
Not all at once, and not always obviously. The financial position starts to drift as decisions are made, but it isn’t always being tracked in real time.
Planning approval gives you permission to build.
It doesn’t tell you whether the project will stay financially on track once things are underway.
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