Why Lime can do it, better, faster and cheaper.

We can get you to site 40% quicker. Here’s how.

Below is the typical time line for the traditional separate architect and builder route. (This will vary of course depending on project scope etc). 

• Brief Appraisal, concept designs and feasibility – 1-2 months
• Refined design for Planning Permission submission – 1-2 months
• Pre-application Advice (if deemed necessary) 1-2 months
• Planning Determination and Approval – Minimum 2 months (Likely more)
• Technical detailed design development to tender submission – 2-3 months
• Tender returns period and negotiations – 2-3 months
• Site mobilisation – 1 month

Total to get to site: 10-15 months (this is assuming no delays and best-case scenario throughout)

At Lime, we can offer you the following – an approach that gets you on site 40% quicker by mobilising immediately after submission to the planners, using the time they are determining their approval to provide a confirmed contract cost and the relevant design information:

• Brief Appraisal, concept designs and feasibility and cost – 2 weeks. Our method allows our in house architects to be extremely responsive at the enquiry stage
• Refined design for Planning Permission submission and maximum cost – 1 month
• Pre-application Advice (if deemed necessary) 1-2 months
• Confirm the Guaranteed Maximum Price and finalise details while waiting for planning approval- 3 months (Local authority timescale) 
• Planning Determination and Approval – 2months + once this is complete, work on site begins.

Total to get to site: 6-9months (this is assuming no delays and best-case scenario throughout)

The traditional (JCT contract) approach to procurement results in you signing away against a ‘fixed fee’ with a contractor of your choice at the outset of your build. Bear in mind that the contractor will have priced very keenly to begin with in order to be competitive during the tender process. What normally happens therefore is that your ‘fixed fee’ goes up during the course of the works. This happens because the contractor has included ‘Provisional Sums’ in the contract for any items they can’t be sure of prior to getting on site –due to a lack of information provided in the design, or because they aren’t suitably educated on the property/site that the project is for. Any changes to the design required as a result is than applied for in the contract under a ‘Variation’ of cost once it is determined what the approach needs to be. Once on site you have very little opportunity to control the costs – even if you have a contract administrator during the works. Your architect then has to produce the information required by the contractor, which in itself is an additional cost, and you also have additional costs in terms of materials and labour that weren’t factored in at the outset. 

The process of competitive tender is a zero sum game for contractors – price too high you risk not getting the work, price too low you risk either delivering a substandard product, or worse going bust in the process of delivery. It pits the client against the contractor from the outset and what ensues is a tug of war throughout. This is not conducive to founding a good working relationship, or delivering the high quality product the client is expecting, on time and on budget.

At Lime we start on the basis that we have already given you a worst case scenario maximum cost, that we will 100% stick to as the uppermost cost you will pay for the construction. We then enter contract with you, having defined the detail, with what we consider will be a realistic construction cost for the contract – this will be lower than the maximum previously confirmed, as we will have confirmed with you all the detail we didn’t have previously. We believe that if we have done our homework right in the previous stages of design, and into this one, we can offer you this cost certainty earlier on in your project. We also then offer an open-book approach to construction. This means we are open and transparent with you about the costs for the site works as we proceed, and you have full sight of and control of costs as we go. We also ensure that the details we do produce are relevant to your project, feasible and cost effective, reducing the need to revise these once on site.

Our approach is informed, integrated and collaborative from the outset. We are driven to deliver you exactly what you have signed up for – and more, exceeding your expectations.

The benefits of our approach for you are that if the construction costs do go over the maximum cost we have provided you with at planning stage – we will take on the liability for this. We remove all the risk and uncertainties you would normally face in a traditional approach, to ensure that you get the design you approved at planning, at a cost that has a maximum limit set against it. Thereby it is impossible for the contract cost to run away into uncharted and uncomfortable territory.

In fact, we know that we can deliver your construction at a cost of up to 20% less than the traditional route. How do we know this? Because we have been delivering projects via the traditional route for decades, and we therefore know what the order of savings to you can be, both in terms of minimising variations to the design, minimising fees for revisions to the architectural information and the delays that both of these causes to site works – all the while ensuring the highest quality finish you expect.

Find out more about our Guaranteed Maximum Price.