Planning and Highways

The Town and Country Planning system will celebrate its 60th year in 2007.

Rather than showing any sign of being pensioned off, the system instead seems to be coming of age and is achieving a degree of political scrutiny (and interference) that its creators would never have dreamed of.

The Government's stated aim is to make the procedures simpler, fairer, faster and more transparent. The unprecedented level of change in the planning system that has occurred in the last two years means the system is currently a confusing mix of old and new, with policy and political thought outpacing what can be achieved by the development control process.

This all adds up to uncertainty for all those involved, be they developers, end-users, local authorities or indeed practitioners. To pilot a scheme from initial concept, through the development plan process, master planning, design, infrastructure provision, planning application, Section 106 agreement and (hopefully) to achieve planning permission takes resource, time, energy and persistence. It also requires a robust professional team including lawyers who understand not only the law but also the political processes involved.

"Securing planning permission is a team effort", says Richard Guyatt, a partner in the Planning and Regeneration team in Bond Pearce. "A developer needs surveyors, planning consultants, highways engineers, lawyers, and often PR consultants to steer a project through. Faced by this plethora of experts, planning authorities increasingly find that they also need to draw upon a team of internal and external experts to ensure the authority is properly represented and advised."

What makes the work so interesting for Guyatt and his team is that planning affects real people every day of their lives and has a fundamental effect on how towns, cities and the country as a whole are shaped. "Everyone is interested - everyone has a view of the merits of an old building; whether a new superstore should be opened in a town or whether a new by-pass is required" says Guyatt. "We have the experience and ability to act on any such project. Our particular expertise is in infrastructure, where our knowledge of compulsory purchase process can be used to achieve land assembly using a planning authority's local positive planning or highway powers."

The process is also an interesting mix between contentious and non-contentious work. Whilst argument between developer and authority can be acrimonious (and can lead to an appeal to the Secretary of State), equally, if permission is issued, then it is in all parties' interests to make sure that permission is robust and capable of withstanding scrutiny in the High Court following a judicial review.

Guyatt also predicts that the planning process will become profoundly influenced by the use of positive planning powers by local authorities and agencies such as English Partnerships and the Regional Development Agencies. Their involvement in the market is likely to produce a sea change in a number of aspects of the development world, such as infrastructure provision, housing mix and new standards of design.

As well as being experienced in all aspects of the planning process, the Bond Pearce team also deals with highways and infrastructure schemes. At the moment it is working on a Transport and Works Order (TWO) for a new freight marshalling yard. It has previously acted on TWOs for guided busways and port infrastructure. It has a specialist highways team and acts for a number of Highways Authorities on compulsory purchase orders, highways orders and private means of access orders. It also has considerable experience drafting highways agreements.