Real estate
Planning & environmental law
Our Planning & Environmental Law
Practice advises public and private sector clients, including
Government departments and agencies, local planning authorities,
national and multinational companies and property developers, on
the planning aspects of a broad range of development
projects. Our lawyers advise in both transactional and
regulatory contexts.
Planning
The town and country planning regime, and the
associated areas of compulsory purchase, compensation, highways and
water law, are of fundamental importance to property
transactions. And it is self-evident that the grant of
planning permission is essential to every property development
project.
The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004
has substantially changed the planning regime and as the
various parts of the Act are brought into force, government
planning policy has also seen changes.
Environmental law
As the full impact of human activity on the environment becomes
more widely acknowledged, governments respond with more
environmental legislation. In the past few years, we have
seen the introduction of the regime for the remediation of
contaminated land, an overhaul of the integrated pollution
prevention and control legislation regulating production
industries, the introduction of the climate change levy and changes
to the regulation of waste disposal.
Potential environmental liability has become one of the central
issues in property and company acquisitions and
disposals.