Your challenges
Planning and environmental law are two areas that are constantly being updated to respond to new challenges. We can help you keep track of these legal changes, whichever angle you are coming from, and provide a full service to meet your needs. Consequences of non-compliance with either regime can have significant consequences and it is vital that you have robust and practical legal advice to guide you through.
Achieving your ambitions
Where do planning and environmental issues affect you? If you are a developer or landowner we can help you with practical and commercial legal advice on obtaining permission swiftly, with an eye for legal risk management. We advise on applications, environmental statements, appeals and court challenges. If you are an operator of controlled premises, we can help you with environmental control permits and, when the inspector calls, even with interviews under caution and prosecutions.
You may be a local authority, handling a controversial or large application, dealing with an application to the IPC for a major infrastructure project, introducing Community Infrastructure Levy, negotiating a planning agreement or dealing with tricky enforcement. We can deal with that or handle large volume planning agreements, for example, or advise on contaminated land.
Or perhaps you want to oppose a development – maybe in court. We advise objectors as well.
We are taking a keen interest in the draft provisions of the Localism Bill, in relation to issues such as neighbourhood planning, and are able to advise on the latest Community Infrastructure Levy provisions and other funding mechanisms such as tax increment financing.
We are taking a keen interest in the emerging National Planning Policies Framework, the draft provisions of the Localism Bill (expected to receive Royal Assent at the end of November 2011), in relation to issues such as neighbourhood planning, and are able to advise on the latest Community Infrastructure Levy provisions and other funding mechanisms such as tax increment financing.
Because we act for all sides, all of our clients get the benefit of our knowledge of everybody’s tactics.
The strength you need
You will have our dedicated planning and environmental law team to help you deal with the increasingly complex issues our team covers.
Team leader, Beverley Firth, is a specialist in town and country planning, and some members of our team are members of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management and the United Kingdom Environmental Law Association.
Our clients include developers, local authorities, landowners, waste management companies, minerals operators, further education and higher education institutions and NHS trusts.
Lawyers you can trust
Our team is highly rated by legal directories such as Legal 500: “Beverley Firth is lauded ... for her 'strong grasp of the complexities associated with major mixed-use developments' and led the team acting on the redevelopment of Cambridge Railway Station."
Our team produces regular e-bulletins and posts on our planning blog, Plan-it Law, to ensure you are kept up to date.