Planning & Environmental Law

What can we do for you?

Chambers UK - A Client's Guide to the Legal Profession states "the team can offer a complete planning service from 'A-Z'."

The work undertaken by Members of the Planning and Environmental Law Division over the last twelve months gives a good idea of what we can do for you.

There was a heavy emphasis on local plan inquiry work. Members of the Division appeared on behalf of clients at local plan inquiries in Edinburgh, Fife, Dundee, Aberdeenshire and Inverness. Details are given in ‘Planning and Environmental Law Casework’. The predominant issue at these inquiries was housing land supply. In addition, we were involved in submitting representations for clients to several emerging development plans.

There was a steady flow of development control work over this period involving advising on tactics with development proposals, appearing for clients at planning hearings, negotiating affordable housing issues and developer contributions in more than 20 planning agreements, mainly for major housing developments, resisting unreasonable conditions and handling planning appeals for a range of developments – both through written submissions and public inquiries. The recent growth of interest in renewable energy was reflected in our involvement with several wind farm proposals, either on behalf of promoters or objectors.

In addition to the mainstream development control work, we were engaged during the year in fending off enforcement action, pursuing enforcement notice appeals in respect of a landfill site and on a outdoor activity park objecting to a tree preservation order and advising on the regulation of listed buildings.

Linked to development control is the provision of infrastructure and we find we are increasingly being called on to steer clients through the intricacies of the law in this area. This was particularly so during the year with regard to sewerage which is emerging as a major constraint on development, but also water supply, roads and flood prevention.

We were involved in a certain amount of compulsory purchase casework as a result of the publication of the Edinburgh Tram Bills and of major road schemes and there was an increasing demand for assistance in steering a way through the complexities of the compulsory purchase compensation rules and the provisions for alleviating blight.

Environmental law casework focused mainly on the environmental implications of the purchase and sale of offshore assets and matters arising on decommissioning. However, members of the Division were also involved in advising on the application of the contaminated land regime to the purchase, sale, lending on the security of, or leasing several large industrial sites affected by historic contamination. Other environmental issues in which we were engaged during the year included the operation of the waste management regime, the need for environmental permits, the control of noise, the handling of radioactive waste and the implications of the designation of sites as European sites.

Much of the work outlined above was undertaken on behalf of corporate clients; but we also acted on occasion for private individuals, for objectors and for public bodies, including local authorities. While the emphasis of our work varies from year to year, the planning and environmental law services we offer typically include:

Advising on the response to draft Structure and Local Plans, drafting objections, participation in Local Plan Inquiries;
Advising on tactics and procedure in making planning applications and objecting to applications;
Negotiating Planning Agreements;
Advising on the strength of appeals and handling all aspects of appeal work, including advocacy at Public Inquiries;
Advising on enforcement and other notices and handling all aspects of enforcement appeal work;
Advice on listed building law and procedure;
Advising on infrastructure procedures: roads, water supply, sewage disposal and other utilities;
Advising on compulsory purchase procedure and compensation claims and handling all aspects of objection procedure;
Petitioning for Judicial Review of actions and decisions of Planning Authorities and other public bodies and the Scottish Executive;
Advising on environmental permits and handling all aspects of appeals relating to such permits;
Advising on pollution control matters;
Involvement in all aspects of the new Contaminated Land Regime.