TBH, apart from the bribes it mostly sounds pretty similar to the UK. Perhaps this person would have had an easier time if they had hired a professional to deal with it for them.

I often visit sites with potential clients and I have to tell them sorry, I can try, but you will pay a lot of fees to me and the local government and you will likely never get permission to build here.

Off the top of my head, here are some permissions / consultations you could need to build a private house in a UK, most sites wont require all of these at the same time but many sites will have a least one need for a specialist site survey of some kind:

Planning permission (Regulation of the impact of your build on the community): - Roads department consultation - Water supplier consultation - Wastewater consultation with water authority and EPA - Archaeological service consultation - Natural heritage / ecology. - Historic environment consultation. - Coal authority (abandoned mines) - Contaminated land check - Landscape capacity study - Full set of plans, sections and elevations and report to show: - Materials - Relation to existing buildings - Effect on landscape - Land use - Room use - Placement of windows / doors in relation to existing buildings - etc...

Building control / Building warrant (Safety of the finished building): - Radon assessment - Structural engineers certificate. - SAP (energy use) calculation - Full set of plans, sections and elevations showing compliance with all building regulations - Consultation with Fire Authority - etc...

CDM regulations require the client to appoint a competent builder / architect / engineer etc Party wall agreement ....and some more I can't be bothered to type out here....

This whole process typically takes a minimum of 6 months before you get permission to break ground. Some of the consultations are a one line response saying 'no objection' or they can require you to get specialist surveys done, this can drag things out longer.

For a factory the process will have several more levels of detail for each of the points above. E.g each point under planning permission might require a specialist consultant to visit the site, make tests or surveys and perform desk studies and then the submission of, I don't know, say, a 20 page written report with their findings.