The secretary of state was heavily criticised in the recent High Court judgement to quash his decision to block the redevelopment of Marks & Spencer’s store on Oxford Street. Mrs Justice Lieven held that Michael Gove’s decision was...

Planning analysis: In Marks and Spencer plc v SSLUHC, the High Court quashed the Secretary of State’s decision to block the redevelopment of Marks & Spencer’s (M&S’s) store on Oxford Street, finding that there was no presumption in favour of repurposing and re-using buildings in the...

Martha Grekos on the pull of civic responsibility, City of London regeneration, and getting more women into politics and governance 

I have always believed and participated in meaningful civic engagement – where we, as...

The news that Rachel Maclean has been ousted as housing minister the day before she was due to introduce the government’s Renters Reform Bill to committee sums up the problem with government housing and planning policy at the moment....

Sometimes you are given something so beautiful that words will not do justice to the work. And this is what I feel about Niki Gorick’s photographic book, which illustrates the rich mix of personalities and activities in St Katherine Docks, the Surrey...

Is the government taking the challenges that local planning authorities face seriously? The simple answer is “no”.

I had high hopes this February when the government...

In its October 2021 Net Zero Strategy, the Government said that “devolved and local government play an essential role in meeting national net zero ambitions” because it “is best placed to integrate activity on the ground” and to inspire “action by, local businesses,...

There are many challenges being faced by tall building planning applications in London. One  major challenge is the issues surrounding heritage harm, as evidenced by the recent refusal on 22 September 2023 by the Secretary of State for...

Post pandemic, the City is facing a unique set of challenges. The dual challenge of the impact of  online shopping on our high streets alongside what hybrid working means for office space means that  the City is grappling with a sense of...

The Fleet Street Girls, by Julie Welch, is a marvellous read of the inspiring and evocative story of the female journalists who broke down barriers in the 1970s and 1980s as women moved up the ranks in Fleet Street for the first time.

Julie Welch, the only “girl in the press box”...

Why infrastructure applications will now have to be assessed according to the impact of the housing schemes they would support

A Court of Appeal judgment has reminded planning officers considering...

The City of London Law Courts development provides an opportunity to reflect on the sorry state of the rest of the court estate, says Martha Grekos

The construction of a state-of-the-art combined court is under way in the heart of London’s...

The City of London faces a unique set of challenges, with the dual impact of online  shopping on our high streets and hybrid working on our offices. In a way, it is facing an identity crisis.

The identities of places change over...

The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill was created with the aim to drive local growth, empower leaders to regenerate areas and ensure people across the UK can share in the success.

The Bill intends to improve the planning system...

Cities should work for everyone. Everyone living in a city should have access to essential urban services within a 15 minutes walk or bicycle ride from their home. A good place to live, work and spend time where the essentials of daily life are within a gentle...

Cities should work for everyone. A good place to live, work and spend time where the essentials of daily life are within a 15-minute walk or cycle ride rather than a drive away: that’s the fundamental principle of the 15-minute...

Cities should work for everyone. Everyone living in a city should have access to essential urban services within a 15 minutes walk or bicycle ride from their home. A good place to live, work and spend time where the essentials of daily life are within a gentle...

A business improvement district is a business-led and business-funded body formed to support economic growth in a geographical area and to create a vibrant destination for those who work, visit or live there.

Government legislation...

The Local Government Act 1972 requires councillors to be present to decide applications.

Since 4 April 2020, under emergency legislation, the Coronavirus Act 2020 (section 78), planning committee meetings have been authorised to be...

In Trent, R (On the Application Of) v Hertsmere Borough Council [2021] EWHC 907 Mrs Justice Lang handed down her decision setting out the consequences of non-compliance of the CIL Regulations by a charging authority.

The...

Introduction

Londoners will head to the polls on 6 May 2021 to elect a mayor and 25 London Assembly members. So what planning powers does the Mayor actually have and can he (or maybe a ‘she’ in the future) shape the physical...

A few months into the Covid-19 pandemic, many people started to talk about another pandemic - the 'loneliness pandemic'. The NHS and Red Cross were advising on how to cope with the isolation thrust upon us by the global health crisis and its accompanying lockdown....

It is 20 years since London has had a directly elected Mayor and this book reflects on the setting up, running and workings in the mayor’s office, or as Tony Travers describes his chapters the ‘design’, ‘evolution’ and ‘operation’ - naturally ending with an...

Many of us are currently in the midst of the celebration of Advent, and the 12 days of Christmas which begin on Christmas Day (25th December) and end on Epiphany (6th January) are soon upon us. So what should those involved in planning law and policy need to note and...

Introduction

Covid-19 has been seen by many as an opportunity to transform our way of life and act in a more environmentally conscious way. America now has a President-Elect who is very pro clean energy, wants to deliver net zero by 2050 and has pledged...

On 3rd November 2020, the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal against the decision of the High Court in Hillside Parks Limited v Snowdonia National Park Authority [2020] EWCA Civ 1440 which considered the question of whether a planning permission for 401 houses...

Intensification and contamination in granting planning permission (Smith v Castle Point Borough)

The issues before the Court of Appeal were whether the local planning authority had failed to consider issues of intensification of use,...

How to interpret planning conditions (DB Symmetry Ltd v Swindon Borough Council)

The question before the court was whether the access roads within the development could only be used by members of the public with...

The High Court case of Norfolk Homes Ltd v North Norfolk District Council [2020] is a useful reminder of the importance of ensuring that when granting a section 73 application, previous section 106 agreements are not to be forgotten. The case suggests that it...

Introduction

The Government has published its long awaited White Paper ‘Planning for the Future’. The political rhetoric of ripping up England’s post-war planning rulebook and replacing it with a...

The prime minister, in his “build build build” speech of 30 June, has indicated a radical overhaul of the planning system, with the objective of ensuring speed, national infrastructure delivery and further deregulation to stimulate economic growth. The perception is...

This week Boris Johnson promised us the biggest planning system shake-up since the Second World War to help kick-start the economy. The announcement is still thin on detail, and a planning policy paper on this is expected later on this month. However, the radical...

Reforms have been proposed in The Business and Planning Bill which was introduced to the House of Commons on 25 June 2020. The planning reforms proposed in this Bill are in Part III.

The Bill provides that the permission extension...

Bias in planning has again been highlighted, but this time in a spectacular fashion that has caused a bit of a stir not just in the world of planning, but now on a national political platform too.

The Secretary of State for Housing had granted planning...

The link between good planning and good health is unequivocal. The quality of the built and natural environment has a significant impact on health and wellbeing.

Considering the health implications of a particular development is not new to the planning world....

The retention of the Green Belt continues to be a huge issue for councils and communities across the country, as it is an issue that councillors face regularly on the doorsteps of their electorate. Combine that with the UK crisis of housing supply and a call to...

This is a very beautiful photographic book. Niki artistically captures the vibrancy and diversity of faiths in the City of London through a collection of photographs of over 200 visits to most of the City’s places of worship.

The mention of “Faith in the City...

In early April, regulations were drawn up to change the time, frequency and location of all local authorities planning meetings so as to allow for local governance to become virtual. Across London, there have been differing responses. Some councils, such as the Royal...

Introduction

The Covid-19 pandemic has meant that the planning system has had to adapt quickly to meet the demands of the ‘new normal”. So what have been the immediate implications for the planning system and what are...

Gentrification is a divisive and tainted term. It was coined by UCL academic Ruth Glass in 1964 while studying the movement of people in Islington. In her work London: Aspects of Change she described how the social character of many urban areas of London has changed,...

An interview by Marie-Gabrielle Williams. Stephen Morgan, barrister at Landmark Chambers, and Martha Grekos, barrister at Martha Grekos Legal Consultancy, discuss Policy Exchange’s report on ‘Rethinking the Planning System for the 21st Century’ (the Report). They...

It was Friday 13th and it was indeed unlucky for the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. The Mayor received a letter from the Housing Secretary, Robert Jenrick, ordering him not to publish the London Plan in its current state, directing that a series of modifications need to...

Can you use a section 73 application to vary a planning consent when the changes to conditions you are seeking also entail a change to the description of development on the previous permission?

The answer, according to the Court of Appeal...

Introduction

Background

The Court of Appeal was required to consider whether the Divisional Court was wrong to conclude that the Government’s policy in favour of the development of a third runway at Heathrow was produced...

A recent Court of Appeal ruling on housing land supply highlights the fact that local authorities enjoy some latitude in exercising their planning judgment on whether a site can be considered to be 'deliverable', say legal experts.

Last month, the Court of...

The draft London Plan’s examination in public raised awkward questions about its blanket ban on green belt development.

Following the public examination of the draft London Plan in 2019, the inspectors reached an “inescapable conclusion”: if London’s...