Planning and Environment

Cornerstone Barristers has some of the most highly regarded barristers in the planning and environment sector. Our barristers combine specialist expertise with exceptional market knowledge to deliver strategic legal solutions. From our offices in London, Birmingham and Cardiff we advise a wide range of clients from large property developers and public bodies through to small businesses and individuals.

Our barristers are regularly involved in planning enforcement appeals and inquiries, development plan inquiries and in planning challenges before the law courts at all levels.

Our knowledge spans the full spectrum of planning and environment issues, including related areas such as public law, property, energy, and local government law. We are specialists in compulsory purchase and compensation cases.

Particular expertise includes:

• Local plans
• Green Belt and countryside
• Housing
• Compulsory purchase and compensation
• The historic environment
• Retail and commercial development
• Highways and transport infrastructure
• Energy and renewables
• Fracking
• Minerals and waste
• Habitats and species protection
• Environmental impact assessments / Strategic environmental assessments
• Commons, town and village greens
• Rights of way

Our barristers have experience acting across multiple business sectors, including development, infrastructure, energy and leisure, often acting on major inquiries and nationally significant matters.

Recently this has included:

• The rejection of four onshore wind farms following Wales’s longest ever planning inquiry;
• Challenges to highly controversial proposals concerning fracking sites in Lancashire;
• Conjoined challenges over significant basement developments in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; and
• The HS2 railway Hybrid Bill.

The team is the leading authority on planning issues and recently published the Second Edition of Cornerstone on the Planning Court. The book provides a detailed review and analysis of the work of the Planning Court, as well as a practical and tactical guide to planning judicial review and related statutory challenges.

Cornerstone also holds an annual Planning Day conference which is highly popular among planning specialists, solicitors and policymakers. Planning Day 2022 was held in November at the Royal College of Surgeons and featured a series of talks from the majority of the team alongside lunch and post-conference drinks. The programme can be found here and the following is a highlight reel from the event.

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Contact the Clerks

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