Website Makeover

We’re giving our website a makeover! Please bear with us whilst we smarten up.

Planning Implications of the election

We have been asked to give a presentation to Prime Plc on the planning implications of the election, more soon.

Planning permission for mixed use development in Westminster - March 2010

Lichfield Planning has won planning permission for its clients Soho Housing Association, in conjunction with Octavia Housing, for a mixed use development in Westminster. Designed by PRP Architects, the residential element comprises 100% affordable housing. Grant funding has been secured from Westminster City Council and the Homes and Communities Agency.

Nat Lichfield Celebratory Conference

A conference in memory and celebration of Nathaniel Lichfield has been organised by the Royal Town Planning Institute and University College London (UCL).

The event will take place at UCL on 23 October 2009, chaired by Sir Peter Hall, and will debate major issues facing UK planning and development in the light of a changing economic and social scene.

To express an interest, please email awards@rtpi.org.uk

Expanding our work in the Niger Delta

Lichfield Planning and Harcourt Adukeh Associates, our local partner in Nigeria, have been commissioned by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) to prepare an Implementation Plan for the sustainable development of the Niger Delta Region and to facilitate demonstration projects focusing on growth pole development and the planning and design of business enterprise parks.

The contract follows our previous work with Harcourt Adukeh Associates when we assisted the NDDC with the preparation of the Niger Delta Regional Development Master Plan and the preparation of a sustainable development plan for 16 communities in the Egi, Rivers State, a major in-shore oil producing area, also in the Niger Delta.  

Over the next three years we will work closely with NDDC staff and other public, private and NGO stakeholders on plan preparation and capacity building programmes. Our aim is assist them in their pursuit of sustainable development to improve the quality of life in a Region that has enormous development potential and a huge determination on the part of its people to create the enabling conditions for that development.

SnOasis finally gets go-ahead

After a planning application process taking 4 years, the massive and highly adventurous SnOasis winter sports and leisure development near Ipswich has finally been given the go-ahead by the Department for Communities and Local Government – and it was Lichfield Planning that started the snow-ball rolling!
Focusing particularly on winter sports, the 300 acre development will include a 415 metres long, real-snow ski slope, nursery slope, bobsleigh run, ice-skating track, ice-climbing wall, cross-country skiing facilities and a ski village with hotel, conference centre and 350 log cabins. Development will focus on a disused quarry currently being used as a landfill site, with on-site use of the land-fill gases featuring as just part of a package of measure to minimise the development’s carbon footprint.

The scheme has grown out of an opportunity first identified by Lichfield Planning when the firm was commissioned by Mid Suffolk District Council to prepare regeneration proposals for three closely connected brown-field sites at Great Blakenham. Lichfield Planning’s work proposed a sustainable, mixed-use approach, including a business village, housing and a major leisure development of regional / national significance (now SnOasis), all supported by a new railway station providing the local community with improved transport links to nearby Ipswich as well as good access to the national rail network for the new development.

Supported by the British Olympic Association and a number of other national and regional organisations, SnOasis is due to open in 2011 and it is predicted that it will attract 750,000 visitors each year.

Hartlepool Borough Council has appointed Lichfield Planning to undertake a masterplan review.

Hartlepool Borough Council has appointed Lichfield Planning to undertake a masterplan review and prepare Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPD) for a 120 hectare, brown-field  site next to the town centre. Victoria Harbour offers major regeneration opportunities and its redevelopment is backed by One North East, English Partnerships and Hartlepool Borough Council. The principal land owner, PD Ports has been working on the project for several years with Tees Valley Regeneration and the Council has already resolved to grant outline planning permission for a master-plan-backed scheme, subject to satisfactory negotiation of a Section 106 agreement. The development proposals have now reached a stage at which the Borough Council wishes to prepare long-term guidance that will include a review of the masterplan, use and phasing guidelines and design guidance. Working with architects, Levitt Bernstein, Lichfield Planning will lead this project, aiming to have the SPD ready for adoption by Autumn this year. To engage the local community in this major scheme from the outset, it is intended to hold several “stakeholder workshops”  and a “Placecheck” review, all prior to formal  consultation.