Planning - Case Study
In 2001 our planning team responded to an initial enquiry for some fairly low key advice about whether there might be any scope for obtaining planning permission for commercially viable development on an unallocated derelict industrial site outside a settlement boundary in a rural area. The value without planning permission was either very low or negative since the abandoned uses had been industrial and contaminative. The client’s objective was to secure planning permission which would maximise the land’s value.
There were various issues and tactics, and throughout the entire process we were the lead professional advisor in a varying team across a variety of disciplines. It was necessary sometimes to explain to the other professionals and the clients why “unpopular” measures were essential. This ranged from expenditure of several thousand pounds on environmental appraisals to the close attention to a pedestrian access issue once it had been identified by us.
The initial critical issue was non allocation, followed up by identifying and master minding the procedural and evidential representations necessary to have any chance of securing allocation at any emerging stage.
Our initial advice centred on the requirement for at least some gesture towards allocation, and a need to deliver an alternative pedestrian access to the site which was going to have to be legitimised and formalised in circumstances where the clients’ actual legal position was weak. They were at risk of being held wholly to ransom by at least two neighbouring owners, or alternatively failing to obtain planning permission because of lack of sustainability in terms of site suitability and access to the town.
In parallel with this we identified with the client the need to capture the imagination of officers and more particularly members at the local planning authority, and to anticipate and resolve a raft of other potential issues in relation to both planning and marketability.
Our advice included anticipating the need for a wide range of specialist reports and assisting the client with finding, briefing, and liaising with experts as they prepared their material and inspiring them to seek imaginative solutions to technical problems. This included finding a way of creating a cantilevered footpath structure on a steep embankment so as to avoid the need to obtain land or access rights from third parties.
Our lawyers conducted negotiations with adjoining land owners and sought out “gains” which were attractive to them and which could be used as bargaining counters in order to obtain the limited rights or additional land our clients required in order to be able to obtain planning permission and to sell the site for development. Without these rights our clients would have been placed in a totally ransomed position.
Having applied for planning permission and obtained a resolution from the local authority to include the site in the emerging local plan we identified the window of opportunity to submit a (second) planning application, mindful that the position could change as the local plan process continued.
Later, having then obtained a committee resolution to approve subject to complex Section 106 deed requirements we were involved in detailed negotiations with the local planning authority and neighbouring land owners separately over the content of the Section 106 deed, and in the case of the two relevant adjoining owners securing legally binding arrangements with them.
Imaginative drafting of totally novel documents was required, as well as the “given” of a high standard of professional knowledge and expertise.
At each stage there were frequent changes in the negotiating position and requirements of all the various other parties, including the local planning authority, and there was a need to respond to those changes by shifting our own emphasis with individual parties provided we still kept our eyes on the ultimate objective which was to secure a planning permission that would enable the site to be sold at a good price for development.
