Available roles:
Our team provides full support for Councils planning functions, including advice to Planning Committees and acting on behalf of Councils in enforcement matters and high-profile public inquiries. We also advise on a wide range of property matters from simple leases to complex development agreements, including housing stock transfers, partnership agreements and academy/free school land arrangements.
We offer a wide range of services covering Planning, Property and Regeneration, Highways and Environmental Law. Members of the team have extensive experience of handling complex and high-profile matters of strategic importance, including both large and small development projects, and we enjoy a high success rate with our clients. The team also deals with the full range of leasehold and freehold transactional work and advice for local authority, school and housing clients, with a proven track record of supporting significant projects.
Our planning & environmental law work includes Section 106 planning agreements, the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), planning inquiries and committees, environmental impact assessments, enforcement powers, and defending judicial proceedings challenging the grant of planning permission. We also deal with Highways matters such as the adoption, stopping up and diversion of highways, and Town and Village Green issues such as the administration of applications on behalf of registration authorities and applications for consent to carry out works on common land.
Our property work includes for both landlord and tenant, such as commercial leases, secure and non-secure residential tenancies including service tenancies and temporary arrangements for homeless people. We deal with complex leasehold arrangements, deeds of variation, licences to assign/sub-let for alterations, rent deposit and bond arrangements. We deal with operational leases and licences for schools, as well as allotment tenancies, agricultural licences and farm business tenancies. We provide a wide range of general property advice such as investigation and resolution of title issues, land registration and land charges advice, ‘squatters rights’ and public/private access claims, and advice on local authority statutory responsibilities including applications for ministerial consent.
We work on major regeneration and infrastructure projects including local authority-led schemes, the compulsory purchase order process, CPO compensation and purchase notices, and appropriation of land. We offer training on a full range of issues including planning enforcement, the CPO process and legislative changes. Training can be tailored to specific client needs. We also deal with landlord and tenant support for regeneration schemes, including termination of leases, service of Housing Act demolition notices, and advice on tenant compensation and re-housing. We work on disposals, acquisitions and other transactional work such as development agreements, the right to buy, grants of licences, nomination agreements and housing stock transfer.
