Viability Assessments
An essential tool to ensuring appropriate development in the right locationViability Assessments are an essential tool to ensure appropriate development is delivered in the right locations.
Local Plans, produced by local authorities must be viable and deliverable if housing targets are to be met. Privately financed development schemes need to provide a competitive return if they are to proceed.
Viability assessments ensure that development is not stifled but also that an appropriate contribution is made by developers into affordable housing and local infrastructure.
Assisting Local Authorities
Daniel Connal Partnership has experience and expertise in assisting local authorities in preparing viability studies to determine affordable housing requirements and the level of Community Infrastructure Levy due.
We have also acted for local authorities in reviewing developers’ viability appraisals to check they are based on reliable data.
Assisting Developers
We frequently work with developers, reviewing schemes being submitted for planning permission. Determining whether a specific scheme can reasonably support the proportion of affordable housing set out in the Local Plan, and whether the viability of the project is a material consideration for not meeting any other planning obligations that would otherwise be imposed.
Our team have helped developers and landowners significantly reduce the proportion of (and, in some cases, remove altogether) affordable housing required by planning permission. This has enabled schemes to proceed on difficult sites, that might otherwise never be developed; ensuring reasonable profit for the developer and delivery of homes to contribute to housing targets.
In addition to determining the level of Section 106 obligations, DCP has produced viability appraisals to support planning applications, demonstrating the necessity for decisions that have influenced design solutions, including the introduction of market housing into rural exception sites and demolishing/rebuilding, rather than conversion, in conservation areas.

