Our Managing Director has nine years experience as a Councillor on a major local authority and 3 years as Chair of a Planning Committee.  Our overall team consists of consultants with many years experience of the UK's planning system, at all levels.

We recognise that obtaining planning permission is a key to the long term development of many organisations and businesses.   However, whether or not you can successfully obtain planning permission is not just about the technical planning aspects of your planning application.  If you want to succeed, you must consider how the opinions of politicians, local communities and other groups can impact on your plans.

We provide our clients with the communications and campaigning advice required to cope with the political and public relations challenges standing in the way of successfully winning planning permission.  We offer clients the following services when helping with a planning application:

1.       Development of key messages

2.       Producing a communications strategy and action plan to accompany the planning application

3.       Audits of political opinion

4.       Specific advice on how to best communicate with key political & external audiences

5.       Effectively promoting the application to the political audiences that can influence its future

6.       Supporting our client with their appearance before a Planning Committee

7.       Training for appearances before planning committees and at appeal

8.       Site visit advice (we have in our time attended hundreds of site visits either as a councillor or as a consultant)

9.       Anti-call in strategies

10.    Advice on consultations with local communities, and in 'selling ' proposals to local communities

Part of the service that we offer is a full site audit which includes conducting the site visit (site appraisal, Council Offices, Library, venue search), desktop research and production of the report, sent electronically in Word and PDF formats.

The report includes the following information:

• Recommended Communications Strategy - based on information gathered on the following subjects
• Council Composition - political balance, next election dates, type of constitution, all other relevant decision-making bodies.
• Political Group Leaders - Leader of the Council and Deputy, plus other group leaders (opposition etc).
• Cabinet/Executive membership.
• Ward Members - including Committee membership, election results, local campaign issues, responses to other development in Ward etc.
• Planning Committee - membership, meeting dates, venues, political balance, voting history (e.g., reputation for overturning officer recommendations etc).
• County Councillor – biography, previous public statements made, political and local affiliations etc.
• Site history - any relevant planning history on-site or nearby, local objections, key issues etc.
• Statement of Community Involvement - current status (Submission stage/Adopted), details of expected levels of developer-led pre-application community consultation.
• Town/Parish Council - membership (number of borough/district Councillors also on the Town Council), meeting dates, response to other developments.
• Neighbouring properties - brief analysis of local area - list of properties most likely to be affected and worth contacting.
• Third Party Groups - details on any active groups in area - Residents Associations, Civic Societies etc.
• Media - local paper coverage of site and other relevant issues.
• MP - attitude to development in constituency, support for local groups etc.