Opportunity
Multi-Site Infrastructure Phasing and Fair-Cost Platform
Infrastructure that serves several development sites is difficult to phase and fund fairly.
Decision snapshot
- Primary user
- - Council infrastructure-planning, planning-obligations, regeneration and finance teams. - Developers and land promoters on adjacent or functionally related sites.
- Why now
- - A direct emerging policy requirement uses the words 'joint', 'coordinated', 'phasing', 'delivery responsibilities' and 'equitable apportionment'.
- Initial wedge
- A shared infrastructure programme and apportionment workspace. Each project has a cost range, capacity unlocked, delivery owner, dependencies and funding stack.
- Key uncertainty
- Evidence 25/25 + severity 19/20 + buyer urgency 17/20 + market gap 13/15 + timing 8/10 + delivery feasibility 7/10 = 89/100.
The problem
Infrastructure that serves several development sites is difficult to phase and fund fairly. Site programmes change, costs are refined, network capacity is consumed, land ownership is fragmented and each developer has an incentive to challenge what it should pay. Spreadsheet schedules and consultant reports become stale quickly, leaving councils to reconcile incompatible assumptions during S106 negotiations.
Liverpool's draft Policy STP5 makes the coordination problem explicit: development related to an identified infrastructure project must support coordinated planning, appropriate phasing, delivery responsibilities and equitable apportionment of cost. The Infrastructure Delivery Plan is intended to be live, yet it spans transport, education, health, utilities, digital, drainage, green infrastructure and other systems with different owners and funding horizons.
Who is underserved
- Council infrastructure-planning, planning-obligations, regeneration and finance teams. - Developers and land promoters on adjacent or functionally related sites. - Utilities, transport bodies, NHS and education providers that need reliable growth phasing. - Planning and engineering consultancies maintaining Infrastructure Delivery Plans. - Communities waiting for infrastructure promised alongside development.
Evidence
Local evidence: - Policy STP5 requires proportionate contributions and, for infrastructure serving multiple sites or cumulative impacts, coordinated phasing, delivery responsibility and equitable cost apportionment. - The policy says the IDP is a live document informing decisions, developer contributions and Infrastructure Funding Statements. - Liverpool's IDP covers growth of 33,750 homes and 543,400 square metres of employment space and states that continuous capacity assessment and cross-boundary coordination are vital.
National evidence: - LGA guidance positions IDPs as tools to align capital investment, unlock funding and coordinate delivery, indicating a repeatable local-authority workflow.
Commercial implication: - The product can be funded by councils, regeneration vehicles or participating developers because it reduces negotiation friction and protects the delivery programme.
Demand
- A direct emerging policy requirement uses the words 'joint', 'coordinated', 'phasing', 'delivery responsibilities' and 'equitable apportionment'. - IDP costs, capacities and funding sources change after plan publication, so this is a recurring programme need. - Infrastructure Funding Statements and S106 monitoring create an established reporting and administration budget route. - Multi-site schemes have expensive delay risk, making even modest improvements in agreement time commercially valuable.
Competition
Exacom and similar products manage CIL and S106 data; planning and engineering consultancies prepare IDPs and bespoke apportionment models; enterprise programme tools manage delivery. These validate spend but leave a gap between evidence-base document, negotiation model and live programme.
The defensible niche is an open calculation ledger with versioned scenarios, spatial beneficiaries, capacity triggers and participant sign-off. Consultancy partners should be treated as a route to market, not only competitors.
The opportunity
A shared infrastructure programme and apportionment workspace. Each project has a cost range, capacity unlocked, delivery owner, dependencies and funding stack. Each beneficiary site has a phasing profile and impact drivers. The platform calculates scenario contributions, records negotiated departures and updates every party when costs or site programmes change.
A public transparency view can show what infrastructure is required, funded, contracted and delivered without exposing commercially sensitive negotiation details.
Commercial model
Pricing classification
Proxy based — medium confidence.
Indicative pricing
- Paid test offer: Paid authority or developer pilot: £10,000–£25,000 Illustrative commercial model: - Strategic-area setup and baseline model: £40,000-£100,000. - Council or programme licence: £60,000-£150,000 per year. - Complex multi-site programme: £100,000-£250,000 per year including scenario support. - Participating developer workspace: £2,500-£10,000 per site per year, normally procured through the programme sponsor. - Independent model assurance or annual rebasing: £15,000-£50,000.
Evidence basis: Agile AI Planning Validator (£15,000–£60,000 per licence) is the closest verified adjacent anchor used here. Its buyer, duration and scope are not assumed to be identical; implementation is separated where the opportunity requires integration, assurance or managed delivery.
Commercial test
Ask one planning authority, developer or planning consultancy with a live case pipeline to fund a paid test of Multi-Site Infrastructure Phasing and Fair-Cost Platform lasting 8–12 weeks, using an opening price of £10,000–£25,000 and covering 20 live applications, sites, conditions or evidence packs from one planning workflow. Paid scope: A shared infrastructure programme and apportionment workspace. Charge by authority, professional team, development site or assessed case and compare the fee with planning-officer and consultant time, avoidable invalid submissions and repeated evidence assembly. Measure validation time, missing-document rate, rework, officer overrides, applicant resubmissions and decision lead time. Continue only if handling or rework falls by at least 25%, at least 90% of required evidence is correctly identified and no material planning issue is suppressed. Stop or reprice if experienced officers find material false assurance, the workflow does not beat current practice or the buyer will not renew.
Monetisation models and pricing estimates are research-informed and indicative only. Where direct pricing evidence is unavailable, estimates may use comparable products, procurement data, adjacent market benchmarks and stated assumptions. They are not financial advice, forecasts or guarantees of commercial viability. Independent market, legal and financial validation is recommended before acting.
Score rationale
Underserved score 89/100
Evidence 25/25 + severity 19/20 + buyer urgency 17/20 + market gap 13/15 + timing 8/10 + delivery feasibility 7/10 = 89/100. Confidence is 87/100 because the policy requirement and recurring coordination need are explicit; uncertainty remains around data-sharing, procurement ownership and legal acceptance of model outputs.
The score is evidence-informed editorial judgement based on manually reviewed sources. It is not a forecast or guarantee. How we score →
Evidence sources8
- Liverpool Local Plan 2026-2043 - Policy STP5 Infrastructure
liverpool.gov.uk
- Liverpool Infrastructure Delivery Plan - July 2026
liverpool.gov.uk
- Liverpool Local Plan 2043 - Monitoring Framework
liverpool.gov.uk
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