Real Estate: Planning Permission

Planning is a complex and evolving area of law, which is why you need an experienced solicitor to guide you through the process. We help secure and defend planning permissions that enable our clients to extract optimal commercial value from their land.

Our planning solicitors are practical, cost-effective, commercially aware and focused on the site and the client. We will achieve negotiated solutions when it is possible and when it isn’t, we will challenge.

To speak to a solicitor about your development requirements for commercial or residential development, call us on 0345 872 6666 or fill in our online contact form and we will get back to you.

How JMW Can Help

At the beginning of a project, we can undertake planning appraisals, applications, and if necessary advise on compulsory purchase order (CPO) implications. When a scheme has been built, we can assist with any issues in relation to the construction, including planning revisions or enforcement.

Our services include:

• Planning obligations (Section 106 agreements), including initial negotiation and re-negotiation during the life of the scheme
• Negotiating consents with planning authorities
• Advising on and auditing planning applications
• Providing advice on the law surrounding the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL)
• Strategic planning law advice
• Planning enforcement investigations
• Planning appeals (including call-ins, inquiries, hearings, written representations)
• Judicial reviews and legal challenges (initiating and defending)
• Advising on “permitted development” rights
• Advising on Highways law (including Section 278 and Section 38 agreements, licences and advice relating to offences)

We work with colleagues from JMW’s real estate, construction and finance departments to service clients in commercial property, housebuilding, planning promotion, leisure, aviation and infrastructure.

The team includes experienced solicitors and partners who have helped public authorities and developers deliver schemes from the transactional to the contentious. Examples include complicated large residential schemes, dealing with aviation objections to wind farms and acting for individuals applying for, or objecting to, planning applications or the adoption of planning policy.

Bernard Ralph, a JMW partner specialising in planning law, has had many years of experience advising a varied range of clients across many sectors. He was one of the first solicitors in the country via a claim for judicial review to successfully overturn the adoption of a Neighbourhood Plan.