Across sectors – from renewable energy to mining to infrastructure – strong projects still stall.
They may be technically sound, financially viable, and legally compliant. Yet they still face delay, redesign, appeal, or abandonment. For boards and executive teams, that creates a familiar frustration: from the inside, the project appears to be doing everything right.
So what is missing?
Strong on paper, weak in place
The issue is not simply poor communication, weak consultation, or bad intent. Nor is it that project teams have ignored wider social and political acceptability. In many cases, organisations are already engaging with stakeholders, assessing environmental and social impacts, and offering mitigation, compensation, and benefits.
And yet projects still struggle.
The problem is deeper. In shared space, efforts to build acceptability around a project are no longer enough on their own if the project itself has not been developed in a way that aligns with local realities and aspirations, and responds credibly to local concerns, from the earliest possible stage.
A simple way to state the issue is this: a project can be strong on paper and still weak in place.
In shared space, that gap can translate directly into a weaker return on investment than the technical and financial case would otherwise suggest.
Why three pillars are no longer enough
Traditionally, projects have been developed on three strong pillars:
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technical feasibility
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financial viability
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legal compliance
These remain essential. But in shared space – where projects overlap with people’s lives, livelihoods, and future – they are no longer sufficient on their own.
A fourth pillar is required: local legitimacy and support.
What has often been treated as important add-ons at the edges must instead be built into a core pillar of project success from the outset, most effectively by informing a project’s conceptual design.
Where the problem really forms
A critical issue is timing.
Many teams feel they do not yet know enough about a project to engage credibly on locally important elements with people whose concerns and fears are beginning to form. Yet at the same time, the project's social risk exposure forms early during conceptual design, when key decisions are being made, assumptions are being fixed, and flexibility is narrowing.
That is exactly when local realities are still only partially understood, and those most affected still have limited influence.
This is where misalignment begins.
And once it forms, it becomes progressively harder to resolve.
Not a failure of intent – a failure of alignment
Most project teams are not ignoring communities. They are often engaging, listening, and responding. But the issue is often not whether concerns are considered. It is when and how they begin to shape the project itself.
That is the real shift.
In shared space, projects succeed or stall not only because of what they are, but because of how they are planned, designed, and developed in relation to the place hosting them.
The fourth pillar
The fourth pillar is local legitimacy and support – built through how the project is developed from the earliest possible stage.
It is not built through better messaging alone.
Neither is it built through consultation during or after design alone.
It is not built through benefits added later.
It is built through early understanding of local realities, credible acknowledgement of concerns, meaningful influence while options are still open, and the trust and partnership-building needed to work through what matters most in shared space.
That is the difference between a project being experienced as something done to a place, and a project being developed in a way that can find a workable fit with it.
What needs to change
This requires a fundamental change in how projects are developed.
The transition is
From: explaining projects, mitigating impacts, and managing responses
To: designing projects in a way that aligns with place from the outset.
That means recognising that local legitimacy and support cannot simply be added around a project once the main design assumptions are already fixed. They have to be built into project development itself.
A practical pathway: Projects AT PACE
To support this shift, we developed Projects AT PACE – a structured project development pathway, originally developed as Renewables AT PACE, to help organisations strengthen all four pillars from the start.
Projects AT PACE helps teams:
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recognise early where misalignment is forming
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build the internal readiness needed to respond
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and implement a project development process that is better aligned with how the project will be experienced locally
It is not an engagement add-on. It is a practical pathway for changing how projects are developed in shared space.
The executive implication
For boards and executive teams, the question is no longer only:
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Is the project technically sound?
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Is it financially viable?
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Is it legally compliant?
It is also this:
Is it being developed in a way that can build enough local legitimacy and support to move forward with confidence?
That is the fourth-pillar question.
And it is becoming a serious driver of delivery certainty.
The bottom line
The fourth pillar is no longer an optional extra.
It is becoming a core condition of project success in shared space. Projects that recognise and act on this early are more likely to move forward smoothly. Those that do not are more likely to face delay, redesign, appeal, or failure.
Three pillars are no longer enough.
Explore our guide - Designing Projects that Succeed.
