Mark Beard

Planning

Mark Beard’s planning law experience encompasses a full range of development management, policy and enforcement work. Mark is regularly instructed in cases involving proposals for housing, retail, leisure, renewable energy and mixed-use development. He has extensive experience of cases involving housing supply, employment land, EIA, the historic environment, nature conservation, flood risk, Green Belt, agriculture, highways and travellers.

Recently Mark has been instructed in a number of cases and appeals involving housing development where a five-year supply of housing land is in dispute. Other recent work has involved proposals for retail, office, affordable housing, student housing and renewable energy development. Mark is regularly instructed to advise and appears in planning enforcement cases and is recognised as an expert in the use of planning injunctions. He regularly advises planning authorities on Human Rights law, including the Rights of the Child, and the Public Sector Equality Duty.

Mark continues to advise a number of local planning authorities on the preparation, independent examination and adoption of Local Plans and strategic planning in the absence of an up-to-date Local Plan. He also advises local planning authorities and others on the Community Infrastructure Levy, including the preparation of charging schedules, their implementation and the viability of development proposals.

Mark has promoted road improvement schemes on behalf of the Highways Agency and has considerable experience acting for the Environment Agency in cases proposing development in areas of high flood risk.

Environment

Mark Beard’s environmental law experience is also very extensive and varied, including pollution prevention and control, waste regulation and management, water quality, fisheries and all types of statutory nuisances. Mark is instructed on behalf of regulatory agencies and defendants, both corporate and individual.

Administrative & public

Mark Beard’s experience in public law includes a wide range of work including judicial review, highway law, human rights local government powers, corporate governance, standards and ethics, public rights of way, housing, homelessness, anti-social behaviour, street trading and markets, trade descriptions, and licensing matters.

Recommendations

Appointments

Attorney General’s Panel of Junior Counsel to the Crown (Civil – B Panel) (2004-09)

Education

• LL.B. (Hons) – London
• LL.M. – William & Mary, Virginia, USA

Notable Cases

Masma Ltd v Wealden District Council (Public Inquiry, February – April 2013)
Instructed on behalf of the appellant developer in an appeal inquiry proposing housing development in the open countryside, outside Hailsham, East Sussex. Main issues included the application of the Habitats Regulation, the impact of the proposals on a European Site, the proper approach to calculating five-year housing supply, the consequences of failing to demonstrate a five-year housing supply and the application of the presumption in favour of sustainable development in cases engaging the Habitats Directive.

Norfolk Minerals and Waste Local Plan (March 2013)
Instructed by Norfolk County Council to advise and appear at Independent Examination hearing sessions into the County Council’s Waste Sites Allocations DPD.

Hallam Land v Daventry Distrct Council (Public Inquiry, September 2012)
Inquiry in relation to two large-scale housing schemes on adjacent sites in the open countryside outside the village of Long Buckby, Northamptonshire.

Daventry District Wind Farm Inquiries (Public Inquiries July 2010 – May 2012)
Instructed by the local planning authority in respect of five separate onshore wind energy projects involving the erection, 25-year operation and subsequent decommissioning of five wind farms in Daventry, Northamptonshire.

R (Perrett) v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2009] EWCA Civ 1365 (Court of Appeal); [2009] EWHC 364 (Administrative Court)
Scope of rehearing of an enforcement notice appeal remitted to the Secretary of State.

R (Majed) v London Borough of Camden [2009] EWCA Civ 1029 (Court of Appeal)
Legitimate expectation arising from a breach of the LPA’s Statement of Community Involvement.

R (Peters) v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government [2009] EWHC 1125 (Admin)
Statutory challenge of a planning inspector’s decision to refuse temporary planning permission for a travelling showpeople’s site in the Green Belt and in close proximity to a Special Protection Area.

Thames Water Utilities Limited v Bromley Magistrates’ Court and (1) Environment Agency (2) Water Services Regulation Authority [2008] EWHC 1763 (Admin)
Inadvertent leak of waste water from sewerage undertaker’s network constitutes ‘waste’ for the purposes of the European Waste Framework Directive and Part II of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

R (Bailey) v Secretary of State for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform [2008] EWHC 1257 (Admin)
Judicial review of Secretary of State’s decision to grant consent for a renewable energy power generating station.

Oxford City Council v Secretary of State [2007] EWHC 769 (Admin)
Statutory challenge against the decision of the Secretary of State’s planning inspector and disagreement with the conclusions of a previous inspector.

Memberships

• Administrative Law Bar Association
• Bar of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court
• Environmental Law Foundation
• Planning and Environment Bar Association
• South Eastern Circuit
• UK Environmental Law Association

Latest news