Town planning

Town planning services

Our Planning and Development department provide an excellent service, delivering successful outcomes and added value for our clients. We have a commercially focused approach, drawing on other expertise within the company as necessary, including valuation, construction, viability, sales and letting expertise to assist as inputs to any planning project, large or small. With a comprehensive range of services, find out more about how we can help you with your varied town planning requirements below.

Site appraisals

We review planning history, constraints and policy designations to advise on appropriate types of development, including whether a planning application or Local Plan site promotion is the most appropriate way to achieve development.

Planning application advice

We provide specialist advice in response to queries from clients, including planning application services where our team will liaise with architects and technical consultants to produce a development scheme which maximises value and meets client requirements. Throughout the process we provide ongoing management of the application, maintaining the relationship with planning officer, monitoring and responding to consultation responses and representations, political liaison where appropriate, committee presentation and negotiations of conditions and Section 106 Agreements.

Pre-application enquiries

We liaise with architects and technical consultants to formulate initial proposals and hold discussions with planning officers prior to advising clients on the next steps towards planning application submission.

Certificate of lawfulness applications

We provide advice on how to present supporting evidence, draft Statutory Declarations and submit to the council.

Enforcement

We review enforcement correspondence and advise on the appropriate way forward: new application or appeal, which we then see through.

Planning appeals

We provide advice on the appropriate type of appeal, submit appeal documentation to the Inspectorate, respond to the Council’s case and represent the client at Hearings and Inquiries.

Local plan site promotion and representations

We provide advice to clients regarding the amount and type of development to put forward for allocation in response to Call for Sites, promoting sites through representations and subsequent Examination Hearings, and advising on timing for any parallel planning application.

Our additional town planning services:

Neighbourhood Planning

We advise clients on Neighbourhood Plan site promotion/ representations. We also support Parish Councils.

Local authority resilience partner

We provide an application report-writing service to Local Authorities to help clear backlog.

Planning input to tender proposals

We provide planning input for clients wishing to tender for multi- disciplinary work.

Development briefs

We prepare site briefs as part of marketing material to inform potential developers looking to purchase a site.

Estate portfolio advice

We review landed estates to advise landowners on opportunities for diversification/disposal with maximised land values.