Recent Posts
Nicola Gooch
Land-Banking: The Myth that will not Die?
Anyone reading the papers today will have spotted reports about the Local Government Association's latest research, which is being used...
16/02/18
Nicola Gooch
CIL Appeal Decision: Failing to discharge pre-commencement conditions will not avoid CIL Liability
It is an age old proverb that that the only two certainties in life are death and taxes. A proverb which can feel depressingly apt when...
12/02/18
Irwin Mitchell
Use it (quickly) or lose it
A white paper is expected shortly proposing changes to "value capture" and rules on implementation of planning permissions. The...
06/02/18
Nicola Gooch
Labour sees no value in "Hope": plans to change CPO rules to make landowners sell to the state at less than market value.
At the bottom of this post is a link to a Guardian Article which I recommend you read. In fact don't just read it, print it out and pass...
02/02/18
Nicola Gooch
Behind the Headlines: Planning news you may have missed this week
The news this week has been somewhat dominated by the collapse of Carillion, which means that planning news may well have slipped under...
19/01/18
Joanne Moseley
Calls to boycott company with 64.8% gender pay gap
All organisations employing 250 or more people have until 4 April this year (30 March for public authorities) to publish their gender pay...
18/01/18
Nicola Gooch
Neighbourhood Plans: Written Ministerial Statement Survives Legal Challenge.
At 10.30 this morning, the High Court issued its judgment in the Richborough Estates case*. For those who have not been following the...
12/01/18
Joanne Moseley
Why the Apprenticeship Levy is treated as another tax
John Timpson, the Chairman of Timpson, writing in The Telegraph newspaper explains why his company does not benefit from the annual...
09/01/18
Nicola Gooch
What a difference an 'H' makes: Government reshuffle results in a DCLG rebrand and another new Housing Minister
A week is certainly a long time in politics. It is six days since my last blog post and, not only has the rumoured reshuffle taken place,...
09/01/18
Irwin Mitchell
Consultation on Business Rates - rewriting the rules from the Mazars case
We will leave it to the economists to argue over whether property taxes are progressive or regressive. We can also leave it to the...
03/01/18
Nicola Gooch
New Year Blues... 2018 begins with Rumours and Regulations
The festive season is over. New Year's resolutions have been made* and the world is slowly returning to work, reality and (for those of...
03/01/18
Joanne Moseley
New statistics reveal huge increase in employment claims since fees abolished
The government has today published quarterly statistics which show that the number of employment tribunal claims has increased...
14/12/17
Nicola Gooch
Deliverules: Westminster Council proposes using planning policy to rein-in restaurant delivery services
New technology and the UK Planning System are frequently uncomfortable bedfellows. It is not surprising that a system based on Local...
13/12/17
Nicola Gooch
Supreme Court Decision: Does 'Dover DC' Herald The Return Of Reason To Planning Decisions?
It is very hard to find an upside to being stuck on a Southern Rail train for three hours. That said, my nightmare journey to work today...
08/12/17
Nicola Gooch
The New London Plan: Higher Densities; A Focus on Small Sites and a Huge Hike in Affordable Housing Targets
This year, December 1st has added significance. Not only is it the first day of advent and the first socially-acceptable day to put up a...
30/11/17
Joanne Moseley
Breaking news: Gig economy workers may be able to claim holiday pay going back years
The European Court of Justice has today handed down a judgment on holiday pay in the case of King v Sash Windows that will have huge...
29/11/17
Joanne Moseley
Budget: National Living Wage to increase by 33 pence per hour
Buried under the headlines of the Budget, the Government has announced that the National Living Wage will increase from £7.50 to £7.83...
22/11/17
Nicola Gooch
Budget 2017: Disappointing CIL Reforms & Other 'News'
It is probably a good thing that I have not been waiting on today's CIL announcement with bated breath. For one thing, the Government's...
22/11/17
Nicola Gooch
Tough talk from Ministers over the weekend, but will this be a 'House-Building' Budget?
I fully intend to make up for my spectacularly failure to write a piece last week*, by boring you all with at least two budget related...
20/11/17
Nicola Gooch
Concreting over the Countryside - an English 'Urban' Myth
Earlier this week, the BBC Website published a really interesting research tool, which allows you to look up the percentage of land in a...
09/11/17
Joanne Moseley
Sexual harassment in the workplace: Rehabilitating the perpetrator
I woke up this morning to news that Kelvin Hopkins, Labour MP for Luton North has had the parliamentary whip suspended following...
03/11/17
Irwin Mitchell
Got something to say about Commercial Service Charges?
Residential service charges are subject to statutory control. In the commercial world, however, many a tenant has been mauled by what...
02/11/17
Nicola Gooch
Neighbourhood Plans: Developers draw first blood in the Battle of the Written Ministerial Statement
You may recall some controversy, at the start of the year, over a written ministerial statement which Gavin Barwell, the former planning...
31/10/17
Joanne Moseley
Are "high jinks" ever an acceptable explanation for harassment?
According to newspaper reports, a dossier has identified 36 Conservative MPs accused of various forms of inappropriate behaviour towards...
31/10/17
Nicola Gooch
Supportive of Tunbridge Wells: A local view of the ABC Cinema Site and its lack of Affordable Housing.
Those of you who have a Planning Resource subscription may have noticed an article, published yesterday, which commented on a mixed use...
26/10/17
Irwin Mitchell
Poor mobile signal? - not for long (hopefully). Important news for landowners
Most of you would have no doubt seen the ample coverage of the new electronic communications code which is being brought in to drag...
23/10/17
Nicola Gooch
Housing & Finance Institute Report: Land Banking is a Myth, Conventional Wisdom about the Housing Crisis is Wrong, and maybe Councillors shouldn't vote on planning applications in their own wards....
Earlier this week the Housing & Finance Institute published its report into the causes of the Housing Crisis in London. The report...
19/10/17
Nicola Gooch
Politics and Planning: Tis the Season for Mixed Messages
A bit like preparations for Christmas, the season of pre-budget reporting seems to begin earlier each year. We are just over four weeks...
18/10/17
Joanne Moseley
New leave allowance on the cards for bereaved parents
My dad died a couple of weeks ago. Grief assaulted me like a wrecking ball. I was lucky - my employers offered support and...
16/10/17
Nicola Gooch
Politics and Planning: Research shows a link between Secretary of State decisions and the 'colour' of the Council
Earlier today, Planning Resource published a report on a research project that Irwin Mitchell has been carrying out over the last few...
13/10/17