Investigating Project Feasibility for Residential Development

This course will explore how and when to engage a range of stakeholders, particularly the community, in a residential development process, aiming for them to shape a good and viable design. Participants will learn to identify a range of stakeholders, how to engage them, research their concerns, understand the impacts of those concerns and how they might be responded to. There will be a strong focus on community engagement.

This day and a half course is for mid to senior staff who are experienced at running financial appraisals but want to develop their knowledge base to cover more complex viability modelling. This course will build on the fundamentals of understanding how viability modelling works, covering the more complex key skills around how different tenures impact viability and how assumptions change the outputs. In this course will also look at market trends, benchmarks and more complex scheme delivery structures. Attendees will have the opportunities to adapt a financial appraisal using a bespoke model built for the course.

This half-day course will explore the principles behind using financial models to ensure a scheme is viable. Designed as an interactive workshop you will use live modelling to consider a variety of scenarios by using real live case studies. You will examine the source and quality of inputs and the application of common benchmarks to highlight viability challenges. A session on techniques for improving viability will conclude the course and all delegates will take home the viability model from the training complete with a glossary and guidance note.

On this half-day course participants go through the practicalities of identifying site opportunities and constraints. Participants will use a small site as a case study and carry out desk top analysis using real data. The key objective is to introduce and extend participant knowledge on what to look for on a site visit and what information they can access directly without the need for any consultants. We aim to build participant confidence and knowledge, to promote early identification of site risks that might otherwise jeopardise viability.

This course will explore the development management processes, particularly procurement and budget management, which ensure schemes are kept viable throughout the development process. Potential solutions for cost challenges will be a key component. Participants will learn about upcoming changes in procurement and how to get the most out of the process. They will explore how to monitor and evaluate all likely project costs and income as well as identify the external impacts of changing budgets. They will consider a range of actions to improve viability.

This course will examine how partnerships with the private sector can bring in new sources of finance and provide opportunities to risk share. This will include an exploration of the range of public-private partnership models and how they work in practice to maintain viability and deliver new housing. Participants will learn about the potential benefits and drawbacks of common forms of partnership such as development agreements and joint ventures, how to evaluate risk sharing and the impact of different forms of private finance.

On this full day course participants are taken through how to get the most value from procurement. This course is all about making procurement work for your objectives. Participants will be taken through the procurement journey giving you the options available now and potentially following new legislation in April 2024. This course is highly interactive using lots of case studies and scenarios for active learning. The course will suit those with some procurement experience including procurement specialists who want to understand procurement for housing delivery.