Nathan McLoughlin

We are proud to announce that McLoughlin Planning has been appointed as the retained planning consultants for Birmingham International Airport following a competitive tender process.

Our team has already begun working closely with the Airport on a range of planning matters that support its ongoing operations and ambitious future growth. As one of the UK’s key regional transport hubs, Birmingham Airport plays a vital role in regional connectivity, and we are delighted to contribute our expertise to help shape its development in a sustainable and strategic way.

This appointment reflects our strong track record in delivering high-quality planning advice for complex aviation projects. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with the Airport and its partners to help realise its long-term vision.

If you’d like to know more about our work in infrastructure and aviation planning, please get in touch.

McLoughlin Planning has had recent success in promoting land for 400 homes in the green belt at Elland in Calderdale Borough. For the past three years, the Local Plan has been at Examination, where we have made the case for the allocation of the site for housing and its release from the green belt. Last week, the Local Plan Inspector confirmed that the site should be allocated for development in her recommendations to the Council.

The history of the Calderdale Local Plan is complex, being one of the last Local Plans to be examined under the 2012 NPPF. These Plans were reliant on Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) to calculate the Local Plan’s overall housing requirements.

At the Regulation 18 stage, we successfully secured the allocation of the site in the Plan as part of the Plan meeting its SHMA housing requirement. Unfortunately, Council Members decided to removed the site from the Regulation 19 version of the Plan as they sought a lower housing target, ignoring the findings of their own SHMA.

Presenting evidence to the Examination, we were able to demonstrate the case that the Regulation 19 version of the Plan did not meet the requirements of the 2021 Framework. The Inspector agreed with our arguments and directed the Council to revert back to the Regulation 18 version of the Plan in terms of providing a higher housing target and re-allocating the site for development.

This success is the result of many years of perseverance, first working with the landowner in 2015 and then subsequently with Avant Homes. As part of our wider work, we have been responsible for assembling and managing a team of consultants to produce a Site Promotion Document, undertake EIA Screening and engaging with the Council on pre-application advice. We are currently advising on detailed layout matters with a view to submitting a planning application later in 2022.

We’re delighted to share that outline planning permission has been granted for up to 95 new homes on land west of Marlborough Road, Royal Wootton Bassett on behalf of Richborough.

The approval – which was unanimously supported by Planning Committee – marks the culmination of a long-term and positive collaboration between McLoughlin Planning, the Town Council, and the wider project team.

A collaboration journey since 2023

We’ve been working closely with Royal Wootton Bassett Town Council since 2023 to shape a development that reflects community priorities and the aspirations of the emerging Wiltshire Local Plan.

While the site sits outside the settlement boundary and was therefore not fully aligned with the adopted Development Plan, it is proposed for allocation in the emerging Neighbourhood Plan and tapped into a 200 home buffer for the Town Council to deliver via the Neighbourhood Plan. We successfully demonstrated that bringing the site forward now would support Wiltshire Council in meeting housing delivery needs locally and provide protection under paragraph 14 of the NPPF (National Planning Policy Framework).

Councillors and officers alike recognised the positive and proactive engagement from the developer and project team, acknowledging that the scheme aligns with the direction of the emerging Neighbourhood Plan and represents an inherently deliverable, well-considered proposal.

Planning balance and key benefits

The development will deliver:

• Around 95 new homes, contributing meaningfully to local housing supply;
• A mix of homes to meet local needs, including affordable housing;
• Publicly accessible open spaces and a new children’s play area;
• Pedestrian and cycle improvements linking to nearby amenities; and
• Significant biodiversity net gain through ecological and landscape enhancements.

Despite the site’s partial location within Flood Zones 2 and 3 and its proximity to a Conservation Area, detailed technical assessments – including flood risk, heritage, ecology and transport – confirmed that all potential effects could be successfully mitigated.

We also made a compelling case that the benefits of the proposal significantly outweigh any perceived harms, particularly in light of Wiltshire’s current housing land supply position.

A development with community at its heart

This approval reflects care planning, consultation, and collaboration; considerable efforts went into meeting the Town Council on a regular basis to discuss the Site and the application’s progress. The Town Council specifically commended the developer’s ongoing engagement and responsiveness to local feedback – an approach that helped secure broad community support and, ultimately, a unanimous decision.

We are proud to have played a key role in bringing this site forward and in helping to shape a development that will deliver much-needed housing, improve local amenities and enhance the landscape setting at the edge of this thriving market town.

Project Team:

Client: Richborough

Planning consultants: McLoughlin Planning

Architects: Thrive Architects

Transport Assessment & Travel Plan: Hub Transport

Ecology, BNG, LVIA: Tyler Grange

Acoustic, Energy, Flood Risk & Waste: MEC Consulting Group

Air Quality & Odour Assessment: Rappor

Geophysical Survey Report: Sumo Geo Surveys

Nathan McLoughlin and  Joe Seymour worked with the team of consultants that has successfully secured full planning permission, at appeal,  for 45 new homes at Gotherington on behalf of Lioncourt Strategic Land Limited.

This Appeal Decision is noteworthy because it led to confirmation that Tewkesbury Borough Council (TBC) cannot demonstrate a 5-year housing land supply; the best estimate of its housing supply is judged to be 3.39 years. This leaves the Council in a difficult position, which originates from its failure (as part of the Joint Core Strategy (JCS)) to undertake the immediate review that it promised in return for the JCS’s adoption over 5 years ago. This is compounded by the fact that the JCS review process is a number of years away from being resolved. So, there is no easy fix without more speculative applications and/or the long-delayed strategic housing sites coming forward.

However, 5-year supply is only one part of the case for a planning proposal, it is essential that there is a well-designed and reasoned scheme, which fits with the principles of development in the NPPF and the Development Plan. Working closely with the wider team Nathan and Joe explored the previous Appeal and the sensitive landscape issues which affected it. A detailed analysis of the state of the community facilities and services in the village was undertaken to demonstrate that contrary to the Council’s position, the development would not lead to social cohesion issues.

The Inspector at this appeal made remarks on TBCs development plan that were significantly damaging to this and any future counter-argument, the council might have,  against developments in Tewkesbury District;  the “most important” policies in the development plan were deemed to be out-of-date by the Inspector and paragraph 11 d(ii) of the Framework was held to apply. In addition, the Inspector judged that Policy SP2’s numerical limits on housing development in service village locations were for making allocations and not determining applications.

In paragraph 158 of the Decision, the inspector states:

“In my view, it is of central importance to keep in mind that housing is occupied by people. Dealing with numbers obscures that. The lack of a sufficient forward pipeline of deliverable housing sites will inevitably mean that the housing needs of many people will not be met.” 

This is why the team at McLoughlin Planning do what they do, we care about creating enough homes for everyone.

Nathan McLoughlin was the lead planning witness, Joe Seymour provided support and great skill in assembling and running the Appeal. The wider team included fellow witnesses Cameron Austin-Fell (RPS), and Mike Davies (Davies Landscape Architecture), overseen by Peter Goatley KC on behalf of Vicky Bilton and Andy Faizey at Lioncourt.