News and Resources

Cases about missed time limits give many of us sleepless nights, so (rapid eye movement) you might want to look away now. I’m fairly sure that Laing J’s judgment from last September in R (Bellamile Limited) v Ashford Borough Council (Laing J, 19 September 2019), about a missed deadline for challenging a local plan under …

How unromantic. To my disappointment, that line from Elizabeth Browning’s poem is not followed by a list of the differences between the section 247 and 257 procedures for stopping up highways. I need to fill that gap. After all, the process for stopping up highways in order to enable development to be carried out is …

This blog post covers yesterday’s High Court ruling in Ross & Sanders (obo Stop Stansted Expansion) v Secretary of State for Transport (Dove J, 7 February 2020), where the issue before the court was whether an application for planning permission for development at Stansted Airport, made to the local planning authority, Uttlesford District Council, by …

“The accelerated planning green paper will be published in November 2019.” (MHCLG press release, 1 October 2019). “Later this year I will publish a White Paper on planning reform, an objective of which will be a simpler and faster system for the benefit of everyone, including homeowners, and small and medium-sized builders” (Robert Jenrick, 13 …

Exactly a week after the Westferry Printworks decision letter (see my previous blog post) on 22 January 2020 the Secretary of State allowed two further appeals in relation to significant London residential development projects, this time both decisions following his inspectors’ recommendations, and with costs awards in favour of the appellants, again as recommended by …

Tower Hamlets Council’s revised CIL charging schedule came into effect on 17 January 2020, imposing borough CIL for the first time on its large allocated sites, so you will appreciate its double disappointment at the Secretary of State allowing the Westferry Printworks site appeal, against the inquiry inspector’s recommendations, in a decision letter dated 14 …

“It feels like I only go backwards, baby Every part of me says, “Go ahead” I got my hopes up again, oh no, not again Feels like we only go backwards, darling The seed of all this indecision isn’t me, oh no ‘Cause I decided long ago But that’s the way it seems to go …

I thought I would start 2020 by trying to establish some common ground, before then mentioning what happened shortly before Christmas in relation to the Elephant & Castle and Old Oak projects, both controversial in different ways. The questions are long but I hope that the answers are short. Do we all agree that… 1. …

Duncan Field, Victoria McKeegan and I were speculating in our 16 December 2019 planorama vlog as to what the new Government’s legislative programme and policy priorities are likely to be in relation to planning, infrastructure and the environment We now have the blueprint, in the form of the Queen’s Speech on 19 December 2019 and …

You will remember the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling that our Prime Minister had acted unlawfully in advising the Queen in August 2019 that Parliament should be prorogued? Last week, in R (Lancashire County Council) v Secretary of State R (NHS Property Services Ltd) v Surrey County Council and another (Supreme Court, 11.12.19), five Supreme Court …