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Planning
From rights of way to enforcement proceedings, from planning applications to judicial reviews, planning law is fast changing. Our development division includes a team of specialist planning lawyers with extensive experience of providing planning advice to developers, local planning authorities, contractors, investors and landowners on the application of current legislation and policy.
The services of our team of planning lawyers cover:
- Policy development and application
- Negotiations with planning authorities
- Planning applications and appeals
- Enforcement
- Advocacy at Inquiries
- Judicial Review/Statutory Challenge
- Planning and highways agreements
- Compulsory purchase planning advice
- The diversion and stepping up of highways
Transport & Works Act Orders
The planning law team responds quickly, effectively and collaboratively, working to commercially-minded timescales and budgets. We also liaise closely with our environment specialists on matters such as contaminated land liabilities and waste management licensing issues.
Development plans
The importance to any project of securing the right development planning advice and policies can’t be overstated.
Increasingly, developers and landowners are finding that a development project which does not have the full support of development plan policies will find obtaining planning permission difficult.
Even when a site or a development proposal is specifically identified in the development plan, detailed policies may still create difficulties by imposing stringent phasing requirements or requiring excessive works and contributions by way of planning gain.
We have great experience advising landowners and developers on:
- The proper interpretation of development plan policies
- The impact of current and draft policy on a site or a development proposal
- The way in which policies and proposals need to be worded in order to allow development to proceed
- The arguments to be put to the relevant councils in favour of particular proposals
The planning law team includes a number of experienced advocates who can advise on the preparation of a detailed case and then represent the client at the inquiry hearing into the development proposal Plan.
Planning applications
The correct assessment of a site’s development potential involves close examination of several policy and technical issues. The preparation of a planning application requires just as much attention to planning law, planning principles and detail.
Working as part of a professional team, our planning lawyers can advise on:
- The impact of national and local planning policies on a proposal
- The need to address policy and technical issues
- The way in which a planning authority or inspector will approach the major issues
- Changes to a proposal that might be necessary in order to overcome objections
- The way in which planning conditions and planning obligations can be used to overcome planning difficulties
- The need to comply with the environmental impact assessment requirements, the issues that need to be addressed, and the way in which objections can be overcome
Appeals
Careful attention from the outset is required if an appeal is to have the best chance of success. Our planning lawyers are specialists in handling a wide range of planning appeals on sites throughout the country.
Advice is provided on:
- The overall merits of a development proposal and its chances of success on appeal
- Whether the appeal should proceed by way of written representations, an informal hearing or a public inquiry
- What issues will have to be covered in the appeal and what other professional involvement will be required
Hewitsons planning lawyers can advise throughout the appeal process on drafting the grounds of appeal and other documents, identifying the scope and detail of evidence required in support of the proposal, dealing with objections by the planning authority and third parties, and preparing detailed evidence and legal submissions.
Advocacy at public inquiries
Appeals which are dealt with at public inquiries currently have the highest success rate.
Our planning advice includes recommending at the outset on the best approach, identifying the need for witnesses on particular topics, advising on draft proofs of evidence and advising on the best way to respond to the planning authority’s case or to objections from third parties.
We are well placed to advise on planning law throughout the preparation of an inquiry case and then present effectively the case at the inquiry itself.
Planning and infrastructure
Planning and development process are becoming more complex, as are the statutory agreements often required by planning authorities. A thorough understanding of the framework governing these agreements is essential to avoid serious commercial consequences for the developer, contractor, investor or landowner.
Planning lawyers in our development division have considerable expertise in negotiating and drafting agreements to cover the whole range of planning gain and infrastructure liabilities, including:
- Highway and infrastructure works
- Affordable housing
- Off-site contributions
- Transport subsidies
- Education improvements
- Water supply
- Flood flow and storage
- Open space
- Nature conservation
Our planning law and property specialists ensure that you have prompt and expert advice which concentrates on the commercial consequences of the statutory agreements.
Judicial review
Planning decisions are increasingly under attack in the courts by aggrieved third parties. Where planning permission has been granted in the face of objections, legal challenges by the third party objectors, amenity groups or even rival developers are more common.
Our planning law team has extensive experience taking and defending legal proceedings to challenge the grant of planning permission, the dismissal of a planning appeal and the adoption of development plan policies and allocations.
We advise whether grounds exist for a legal challenge and then how that challenge should be pursued or defended. At an even earlier stage, we can advise on the best way to pursue a planning application or appeal to minimise the chances of a legal challenge.
Working closely with the firm’s commercial property specialists, the planning law team will also advise on the implications of legal challenges for property and development deals which are proceeding by way of conditional contracts or options.
Enforcement proceedings
Planning authorise are increasingly using their enforcement powers to remedy breaches of planning legislation.
Our planning lawyers will advise on:
- Legal issues on enforcement, including whether a planning breach exists as a matter of law
- Whether buildings or uses are immune from enforcement action
- The implications for developers and landowners of enforcement notices, stop notices and breach of condition notices
- Possible breaches of other statutory regimes, including listed building controls
- How to challenge enforcement proceedings by way of appeals and in the courts
- The use of planning conditions and planning obligations as a means of overcoming enforcement problems
- Defence of prosecutions of breaches of enforcement notices
Compulsory purchase orders
Landowners and developers may find themselves either wanting to use compulsory purchase orders to assist in assembling development sites or affected by CPOs for public schemes.
The Hewitsons planning law team has proven expertise advising developers and local authorities on the use of CPOs to assemble land for regeneration and other urban projects. We can provide planning advice on liaison with the local authority, preparation of the detailed CPO documentation and the implications for the authority and the developer of compensation issues.
We’ll also:
- Advise people affected by CPOs how to object to a proposal on legal, planning, technical and other grounds
- Advise on the right to compensation and the legal principles underlying the compensation calculations
- Assist surveyors in negotiations with acquiring authorities over compensation entitlements
- Represent objectors at CPO inquiries
- Conduct lands tribunal proceedings where compensation issues are in dispute
Public rights of way
Developers and landowners can often be seriously affected by rights of way, or claims of rights of way, across their land. Rights of way issues can also delay a development project.
- Working with the firm’s property specialists, the Hewitsons planning team can advise on:
- Whether public rights of way still exist
- What grounds may exist for extinguishing or diverting those rights of way
- What impact rights of way will have on a development project
- Whether a grant of planning permission is sufficient to override a public right of way
- How planning conditions and Planning Obligations can be used to create new or alternative rights of way in order to overcome objections to a development proposal
Associated services: