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Insights

Short pieces written on the regulations, cost data and industry news that change what a scheme costs. We write them ourselves, and each one says what the change is worth in money.

WHAT WE WRITE ABOUT

We do not publish news for its own sake. Each piece exists because it changes a number in an estimate, and it says which number and by roughly how much.

  • Cost Watch. A short round-up of the numbers that moved, with what each one does to an estimate.

  • Regulation. Building Regulations, the Building Safety Act, planning obligations, and what they add per plot or per square metre.

  • Cost Data. BCIS and published indices set against what our own tenders are actually returning.

  • Comment. Our response to pieces in Building and the wider trade press, from the cost side.

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26 October 2026

• PINNED

Communal heating or triple glazing: which costs a developer less?

Points

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MORE FROM US

21 July 2026

What we need to give you a price, and why we keep asking for the accommodation schedule

Almost every delay in getting an estimate back is an information delay at the front, not a production delay in the middle. Here is the whole list, and why each item is on it.
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14 July 2026

The housebuilding target will be missed. From the cost side, that is not the good news it sounds like

There is a comfortable assumption that a slower market means keener prices. It is worth testing, because the last two years have not behaved in that way.
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7 July 2026

BCIS expects tender prices up 15.5% by 2031. That is not a contingency, and it should not be sitting in one

Forecast inflation and risk are two different things and putting them in the same line of an appraisal is how a scheme ends up under-funded while looking prudent on paper.
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23 June 2026

A planning consent you cannot afford to build is the most expensive thing a developer can own

The order in which advice gets commissioned is largely a matter of habit. It is also, on a surprising number of schemes, the difference between a site that works and a site that sits.
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16 September 2026

What moved in the last fortnight and what it does to a number.

Collapsible text is great for longer section titles and descriptions. It gives people access to all the info they need, while keeping your layout clean. Link your text to anything, or set your text box to expand on click. Write your text here...

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Who writes these

Mark Stevens FRICS, Chartered Quantity Surveyor, with over thirty-three years pricing schemes from £1.1m to £142m. No ghostwriters and no press releases. If a figure appears, it came from a real estimate or a named published source.

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Comment and analysis on construction regulation and cost data, from a Chartered Quantity Surveyor. Feasibility estimating and cost planning, RIBA Stages 0 to 4.

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