Introduction

Londoners will head to the polls on 6 May 2021 to elect a mayor and 25 London Assembly members. So what planning powers does the Mayor actually have and can he (or maybe a ‘she’ in the future) shape the physical...

Martha Grekos has been appointed as Chair of Fleet Street Quarter Public Realm & Environment Steering Group.

The Fleet Street Quarter Partnership has been established to take a leading role in accelerating a vision that will shape...

A few months into the Covid-19 pandemic, many people started to talk about another pandemic - the 'loneliness pandemic'. The NHS and Red Cross were advising on how to cope with the isolation thrust upon us by the global health crisis and its accompanying lockdown....

Martha Grekos has successfully passed the selection and training by St John Ambulance to be part of their army of Covid-19 vaccination volunteers to help in the effort to get the country back on its feet.

As the nation's leading first...

It is 20 years since London has had a directly elected Mayor and this book reflects on the setting up, running and workings in the mayor’s office, or as Tony Travers describes his chapters the ‘design’, ‘evolution’ and ‘operation’ - naturally ending with an...

Many of us are currently in the midst of the celebration of Advent, and the 12 days of Christmas which begin on Christmas Day (25th December) and end on Epiphany (6th January) are soon upon us. So what should those involved in planning law and policy need to note and...

Martha Grekos was invited by Chief Executive of Cratus, Nick Kilby, to be part of the webinar 'Our Christmas is Local - a Cratus Special'. 

Special guests included Lord Porter, Theresa Grant, Geeta Nanda, Vikki Slade, Sean Anstee, Gemma Gallant, Chris Blackhurst, Rob Boughton, Mairead...

Martha Grekos has been appointed as a trustee of Woolwich Works. Woolwich Works is London's newest creative district. It is a multi-million pound project by the Royal Borough of Greenwich to restore five heritage industrial buildings on the Royal Arsenal, creating a...

Martha Grekos has been appointed as planning lawyer for the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government's job is to create great places to live and work, and to...

A small act of kindness at Christmas.

We are delighted to be supporting the Fawcett Society and its Christmas Appeal this year. We are donating to this charity as it shares the same vision as us which is to create true equality for all women and...

Introduction

Covid-19 has been seen by many as an opportunity to transform our way of life and act in a more environmentally conscious way. America now has a President-Elect who is very pro clean energy, wants to deliver net zero by 2050 and has pledged...

Martha Grekos has been appointed as a Visiting Lecturer for the University of Law. The University of Law provides law degrees, specialist legal training, continuing professional development courses for Barristers and Solicitors, and is the UK's largest law...

On 3rd November 2020, the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal against the decision of the High Court in Hillside Parks Limited v Snowdonia National Park Authority [2020] EWCA Civ 1440 which considered the question of whether a planning permission for 401 houses...

Intensification and contamination in granting planning permission (Smith v Castle Point Borough)

The issues before the Court of Appeal were whether the local planning authority had failed to consider issues of intensification of use,...

How to interpret planning conditions (DB Symmetry Ltd v Swindon Borough Council)

The question before the court was whether the access roads within the development could only be used by members of the public with...

Martha Grekos has been selected to participate in ‘Innovation Ambassadors’ programme that has been set up by the City of London Corporation. This is an exciting chance to work with fellow colleagues, clients, and new contacts in order...

Martha Grekos was invited by The Architecture Club to be part of their panel series discussing aspects of the Government's Planning White Paper which proposes significant changes to the way planning and therefore design will be administered in the future. The panel...

Martha Grekos has been part of a team drafting guiding principles for freeport proposals. These guiding principles were presented to the Thames Estuary Growth Board by Martha Grekos and were adopted this month. 

The 6 key...

We are delighted to have taken part in the City Giving Day to support the Lord Mayor’s Appeal to raise money for charities and good causes. Like many organisations in the City involved this year, we celebrate and showcase our...

Martha Grekos was a volunteer Steward at the UK Supreme Court for Open House London 2020. 

Open House London looked a little different this year, with a combination of building visits, guided and self-guided walking and cycling...

The High Court case of Norfolk Homes Ltd v North Norfolk District Council [2020] is a useful reminder of the importance of ensuring that when granting a section 73 application, previous section 106 agreements are not to be forgotten. The case suggests that it...

Introduction

The Government has published its long awaited White Paper ‘Planning for the Future’. The political rhetoric of ripping up England’s post-war planning rulebook and replacing it with a...

The prime minister, in his “build build build” speech of 30 June, has indicated a radical overhaul of the planning system, with the objective of ensuring speed, national infrastructure delivery and further deregulation to stimulate economic growth. The perception is...

Martha Grekos has been appointed by the Thames Estuary to their Growth Board. 

The Government-backed Thames Estuary is the UK’s number one growth opportunity. Full details of how the Growth...

This week Boris Johnson promised us the biggest planning system shake-up since the Second World War to help kick-start the economy. The announcement is still thin on detail, and a planning policy paper on this is expected later on this month. However, the radical...

Reforms have been proposed in The Business and Planning Bill which was introduced to the House of Commons on 25 June 2020. The planning reforms proposed in this Bill are in Part III.

The Bill provides that the permission extension...

Bias in planning has again been highlighted, but this time in a spectacular fashion that has caused a bit of a stir not just in the world of planning, but now on a national political platform too.

The Secretary of State for Housing had granted planning...

The link between good planning and good health is unequivocal. The quality of the built and natural environment has a significant impact on health and wellbeing.

Considering the health implications of a particular development is not new to the planning world....

The retention of the Green Belt continues to be a huge issue for councils and communities across the country, as it is an issue that councillors face regularly on the doorsteps of their electorate. Combine that with the UK crisis of housing supply and a call to...

This is a very beautiful photographic book. Niki artistically captures the vibrancy and diversity of faiths in the City of London through a collection of photographs of over 200 visits to most of the City’s places of worship.

The mention of “Faith in the City...

Martha Grekos, along with Stephen Hammond MP, Councillor Peter John OBE and Joanna Rowelle of Arup, was part of a webinar panel organised by Cratus discussing how to move London out of lockdown. Issues focused on whether development can jump start the London economy...

Martha Grekos, along with Richard Bowser, a veteran investor and editor of Property Investor News, which is one of the leading magazines for landlords across the country, provided advice for investors in their respective fields for how they can adapt to the current...

In early April, regulations were drawn up to change the time, frequency and location of all local authorities planning meetings so as to allow for local governance to become virtual. Across London, there have been differing responses. Some councils, such as the Royal...

Introduction

The Covid-19 pandemic has meant that the planning system has had to adapt quickly to meet the demands of the ‘new normal”. So what have been the immediate implications for the planning system and what are...

Martha Grekos gave her first virtual seminar conference as a speaker from her study at home to over 150 participants during the Covid-19 pandemic. This was with RICS, who for the first time ever put on the whole London CPD virtually. 

The day event was...

Gentrification is a divisive and tainted term. It was coined by UCL academic Ruth Glass in 1964 while studying the movement of people in Islington. In her work London: Aspects of Change she described how the social character of many urban areas of London has changed,...

An interview by Marie-Gabrielle Williams. Stephen Morgan, barrister at Landmark Chambers, and Martha Grekos, barrister at Martha Grekos Legal Consultancy, discuss Policy Exchange’s report on ‘Rethinking the Planning System for the 21st Century’ (the Report). They...

It was Friday 13th and it was indeed unlucky for the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. The Mayor received a letter from the Housing Secretary, Robert Jenrick, ordering him not to publish the London Plan in its current state, directing that a series of modifications need to...

Can you use a section 73 application to vary a planning consent when the changes to conditions you are seeking also entail a change to the description of development on the previous permission?

The answer, according to the Court of Appeal...

Who are the women working in and around planning who are having an impact - both on individual planners, teams and organisations; and on planning policy and practice? The Planner has listed its Women of Influence for 2020. Every year for International Women's Day, the...

Martha Grekos has been appointed as one of the panel members to judge the Property Awards 2020. The Property Awards, a Property Week event, are the UK’s leading and most prestigious annual awards dedicated to the full spectrum of the commercial property industry. In...

Introduction

Background

The Court of Appeal was required to consider whether the Divisional Court was wrong to conclude that the Government’s policy in favour of the development of a third runway at Heathrow was produced...

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has set out plans to boost diversity in London’s infrastructure sector, as a new report commissioned by City Hall revealed women, people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, disabled and LGBTQ Londoners are...

A recent Court of Appeal ruling on housing land supply highlights the fact that local authorities enjoy some latitude in exercising their planning judgment on whether a site can be considered to be 'deliverable', say legal experts.

Last month, the Court of...

The Next 100 Years is a project from the team behind the First 100 Years  dedicated to achieving equality for women in law.

 Over the next decade, they want to accelerate the pace of change by encouraging collaboration across the profession, improving...

The draft London Plan’s examination in public raised awkward questions about its blanket ban on green belt development.

Following the public examination of the draft London Plan in 2019, the inspectors reached an “inescapable conclusion”: if London’s...