Recent Posts
Nicola Gooch
Planning Update: A selection box of recent case law and a cautionary tale
As the cabinet seems to have taken a short break from announcing yet more planning reforms*, this post takes the form of a trip to the...
29/03/18
Irwin Mitchell
Stop blaming avocadoes for the housing crisis
There were a number of stories last year suggesting that mild-mannered millennials would be able to buy a home if they cut out the "flat...
16/03/18
Joanne Moseley
Unpaid trial shifts under the spotlight
MPs and unions are calling on the government to enact a blanket ban on unpaid shift work, describing it as “exploitation” by employers. ...
15/03/18
Irwin Mitchell
Letting Business premises? The RICS consults.......
It has been a busy time for the RICS recently on its consultations. First, the Service Charge Code revisions, where the new Code is due...
13/03/18
Nicola Gooch
Monday Morning News Flash: MHCLG Announce extended Agricultural to Residential PD Rights to come into effect on 6 April
Hot on the heels of last week's onslaught of planning consultations, Dominic Raab, our newest Housing Minister, has just announced that...
12/03/18
Irwin Mitchell
Tribunal service under pressure
The Ministry of Justice has published provisional employment tribunal statistics for October to December 2017 and it will come as no...
12/03/18
Joanne Moseley
New NMW register "names and shames" high profile employers whose uniform policies result in staff being underpaid
Latest figures published by the government name 179 employers who have underpaid 9,200 workers £1.1m collectively. Wagamama, TGI...
09/03/18
Joanne Moseley
Scottish firms warned not to punish staff who followed snow advice
According to the Guardian newspaper, Scotland's transport minister has said that employers who try to dock the wages of workers who could...
07/03/18
Nicola Gooch
Developer Contributions under review: Government suggests a major overhaul of CIL and s.106 Agreements... but consults on tweaks to the system
MHCLG has clearly had a busy few weeks, as today has seen the launch of not one but two consultations on major changes to the UK planning...
05/03/18
Nicola Gooch
Rumours that new draft NPPF is to be released on Monday
Planning Resource has just published news that the long awaited revisions to the NPPF may be released on Monday 5th March "according to...
02/03/18
Nicola Gooch
A Reminder to be Reasonable: Yet another judgment stressing the importance of reasoned decision-making
It is not exactly news that 'reasons' challenges against planning permissions have become fashionable again of late - in fact we had a...
23/02/18
Irwin Mitchell
Animals in residential properties - a pet hate?
The Times (from behind a paywall) have reported on a proposal by Labour to oblige residential landlords to allow tenants to keep pets,...
22/02/18
Lorraine Rose-Dugdale
Restrictive Covenants - Building Scheme
In the recent case of Khoury and another v Kensell heard on 9 February, the court found that there was insufficient evidence of an...
22/02/18
Joanne Moseley
Supreme court begins hearing plumber's employment case
It has always been difficult to correctly determine the employment status of some individuals, particularly those engaged under self...
21/02/18
Joanne Moseley
UK bosses believe women should tell them at interview if they are pregnant
A YouGov survey of 1,106 senior decision-makers revealed that a third of those working for private companies thought it was reasonable to...
21/02/18
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