In a major success, we have secured planning permission for a new primary school development for a nationally renowned school for deaf children on a heavily constrained site within the West Berkshire AONB under officer delegated powers and following a positive and proactive period of Council and other key stakeholder engagements. The approved scheme includes boarding house accommodation and a business centre/conferencing facility. In other news, our applications for housing developments in Lambeth and Hackney have been submitted, while planning permission has also been secured for a new sixth form centre and wider school expansion in Milton Keynes.

We have secured planning permission for three major school developments/expansions in Barking at Greatfields, Lymington Fields and Robert Clack. We have also had an appeal allowed for residential development in Camden, while being appointed to act on behalf of Tower Hamlets for a major multi-storey residential development on an operationally surplus Council owned site. We have also been appointed to advise an established retirement village operator on a major development site in Kent with new school instructions secured in Birmingham, Penzance and Leeds.

We have been appointed by the Cabinet Office to act as planning adviser on its One Public Estate programme delivered in partnership with the Local Government Association and Office of Government Property to provide specialist technical support to help facilitate the regeneration of public sector land to support housing delivery.  

Planning permission was granted in May 2018 for the construction of a 6 form entry secondary school (900 pupils), 3 form primary school (630 pupils) and nursery school (45 children) on land that earmarked for an all-through school under a wider planning permission for the phased construction of the Lymington Fields housing development. We were responsible for coordinating the planning application submission and managing the application to a unanimous grant of planning permission at Council planning committee. The main challenges related to the phasing of the school and highway infrastructure (relative to the wider housing masterplan), building scale/bulk/massing and design and lighting impact from the proposed Multi Use Games Areas. We were also responsible for securing subsequent approvals for non-material amendments to the approved scheme.