You have a team. You need the argument.
Most of our work arrives with a scheme already designed and a team already appointed. What’s missing isn’t a drawing. It’s the case.
Is this you?
What’s involved
Planning statements
The document that tells the officer why the scheme complies, in the order they have to think about it. Not a description of the proposal — an argument keyed to the policies the decision will actually be made under.
A good one saves the officer work, and that matters more than it should. A statement that does the policy analysis properly is a statement that gets used.
Heritage statements
Where a proposal affects a listed building, its setting, or a conservation area, the significance of the asset has to be established before harm can be assessed. An assessment that jumps to “no harm” without establishing significance is the one an officer sends back.
Most heritage refusals we see are not refusals of the design. They’re refusals of the assessment.
Second opinions
Someone has been refused, or advised to appeal, and wants an independent read before spending. That’s a defined, bounded, honest piece of work and it often ends with “your existing adviser is right”.
We’ll say so when that’s the answer. A second opinion that always finds a problem isn’t a second opinion.
Objections — done properly
Objecting to a neighbouring application is not writing to complain. Material planning considerations are a defined set, and an objection built on them lands where a hundred letters about property values don’t.
Equally, some objections have no planning merit at all. We’ll tell you that before you spend, which is cheaper than finding out at committee.
Proof
A case where the consultancy came in late and changed the outcome — this page’s real audience is the architects and solicitors who refer.
Questions we’re asked
Will you take over my client?
No. We do the planning piece and hand it back. That’s the arrangement, and it’s the reason the referrals keep coming.
How quickly can you turn a statement around?
Depends on the scheme and how much evidence already exists. If there’s a committee date or a determination deadline, say so at the first call.
Is a second opinion worth the money?
If it stops an appeal that was never going to succeed, several times over. It’s a bounded piece of work with a fixed cost, which is the point of it.
We’re mid-application and it’s going badly.
Come now rather than after the refusal. Since April 2026 an appeal runs on the evidence the council already had — so the last useful moment to strengthen a case is before determination.
Tell us what stage you’re at and what’s missing.
Bounded scope, fixed fee where we can, and we hand it back to your team when it’s done.
Discuss a brief