Planning & property law

"Recommended for having brilliant people, who are receptive to ideas and have 100% committment " Chambers & Partners

4-5 Gray’s Inn Square has for over 30 years been regarded as one of the leading sets of chambers in planning law. It is still one of the principal areas of practice of chambers with most members being accredited members of PEBA (Planning and Environmental Bar Association). Some of the most well known names in the planning law field are members of 4-5.

Members of 4-5 offer high quality advice and experience in all aspects of planning and environmental law. These include development plan work, advice on the formulation and defence of government and local policy, development control advice, public inquiry work and appearance in the High Court, Court of Appeal and House of Lords.

Planning law is often found interwoven with other branches of the law including environmental, local government, compulsory purchase, public law and judicial review. It encompasses areas such as advertisement control, minerals and waste law, rights of way law, footpaths orders and highways law, village greens and commons, Transport and Works Act Orders, Listed Building control, architecture, archaeology, ecology, flooding, canals, dams and reservoirs, as well as the development of housing, roads, airports, sea ports, railways, tramways and busways, cycleways, football and sports stadiums, shopping centres, supermarkets and retail parks, factory outlet centres, casinos, designation of National Parks, countryside and rural development as well as regeneration of urban areas, to name but a few. There are few areas which are not the subject of consideration by and through the planning system, which is a specialist and often complex area of the law requiring professional practitioners of a high standard.

Planning law developed from the pre-World War II Public Health Acts but the modern law has developed from the watershed when the Town and Country Planning Act 1948 was passed. This created local planning authorities and gave them the duty of regulating the development and use of land in their respective areas in the public interest through statutory development plans and development control. Under the recently enacted provisions of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, there has been major reform of the plan making and development control system.

The planning system provides strategic direction for the use of land, and control
over the details of individual developments. The operational framework is set nationally
in law and policy which local planning authorities are required to follow in their decision making. An extensive body of legislation establishes the powers and duties
given to various agencies and the procedures involved. Central government provides a
broad policy framework, but these policies are refined progressively at the regional and
local levels. Implementation of the law and policy is largely a matter for local
authorities, with Central Government, through the First Secretary of State, as the final
authority below the High Court. The aim of the planning system is to help deliver sustainable development: making sure that provision is made for the developments the country requires taking full account of economic, social, environmental and resource considerations.