The UK’s planning system is complex, and clients need both specialist and objective planning advice to help them navigate the system successfully. Our track record has been built upon understanding our clients’ objectives in order to shape the best strategies for delivery. Our clients want commercially focussed advice with ESG outcomes which aligns with the LSH brand.

At Lambert Smith Hampton, we help our clients navigate the UK planning system with clarity and confidence, transforming complexity into opportunity, and bringing development ambitions to life. Our experienced national team provides clear, commercially focused advice at every stage of the planning process, helping to create successful places that provide lasting value.

Whether bringing forward previously developed land for regeneration or securing greenfield growth, we have a proven track record of achieving positive outcomes across a diverse range of projects and all major development sectors. Our broad geographic reach allows us to draw on experience from projects across the UK, while our regional focus means we understand the places where development is proposed.

Combining technical expertise and local knowledge with a practical understanding of development economics, we identify opportunities, overcome constraints, and secure the consents needed to deliver sustainable development at every scale.

Our advice is trusted by leading developers, occupiers, investors, landowners, and housebuilders, as well as government departments, local authorities, and other public sector bodies.

We provide a comprehensive range of planning services, including:

Planning Feasibility Studies: Understanding a site’s planning potential at the earliest stage is critical to making informed investment and development decisions. Whether evaluating a site acquisition, reviewing a strategic land portfolio, or testing development options, our feasibility studies provide the robust evidence needed to support confident decision-making.

Site Identification & Acquisition: Working closely with our specialist Land & Development team, we help clients identify, assess and secure sites that align with their development and investment objectives. Drawing on our market knowledge, planning expertise, and extensive network of landowner relationships, we proactively search for opportunities with the potential to deliver long-term value.

Strategic Land Promotion: Securing land allocations through the development plan process is fundamental to unlocking long-term development opportunities and maximising land value. We work with landowners, developers, promoters, and investors to identify, promote, and safeguard sites through every stage of local plan preparation.

Pre-Application Advice: We prepare and manage pre-application submissions, ensuring that feedback is translated into practical design and planning solutions, creating a strong foundation for well-prepared and effective planning applications.

Planning Applications: Securing planning permission requires more than a well-prepared planning application – it demands effective project management, strategic negotiation, and a thorough understanding of the planning process. By managing programmes, engaging proactively with local planning authorities, and maintaining clear communication across project teams, we keep projects on track and minimise risk through the application process.

Public & Stakeholder Engagement: We develop and implement tailored engagement strategies that reflect the scale, complexity, and profile of each project. From early-stage consultation through to planning determination, we help clients communicate proposals clearly, listen constructively to feedback, and demonstrate a transparent approach to engagement.

Appeals and Expert Witness Advice: We have extensive experience across the range of appeal procedures, and regularly act as expert witnesses, preparing clear, evidence-based proofs of evidence and presenting professional planning opinions at inquiries and hearings. Working alongside legal teams, specialist consultants and project stakeholders, we build compelling cases that withstand rigorous cross-examination.

Evidence Base Preparation: A robust and proportionate evidence base is fundamental to achieving successful planning outcomes. Our specialist Economics Planning Policy team prepare the evidence needed to support development proposals, ensuring that planning strategies are underpinned by credible analysis and a clear understanding of local policy, market conditions and place.  We deliver evidence that withstands scrutiny, manages risk, and gives decision-makers confidence.

To find out more about our Planning Consultancy services please contact a member of our team.

We deliver tailored strategies that unlock the full value of your property assets.

Our overriding objective is to deliver services that secure the optimum value from our clients’ property assets. We provide advice primarily to landowners with a particular strength in advising public sector clients. We get the best value out of our clients’ property assets through strategic asset management, portfolio rationalisation and land disposals, with a full suite of valuation services that sit alongside those functions.

Our more complex projects can involve formulating delivery solutions that involve a joint venture, development partnership, development agreement, a conditional land sale and/or public sector procurement. And because of our deep understanding of the public sector, we are adept at navigating the associated processes and procedures.

The team comprises over 20 multi-disciplinary fee-earners, agile in their ability to tailor advice to each client’s brief and their specific objectives. The team includes specialists in residual valuation of development land, affordable housing advisory, complex land disposals and public sector procurement of development partners. We work closely with market-facing experts in other LSH departments who are active in all key property sectors and UK geographies, allowing us to provide clear recommendations based on robust foundations.

Our key sectors include:

• Development and regeneration consultancy
• Exit strategy and options evaluation
• Land value maximisation and scheme optimisation
• Development valuations
• Asset valuations
• Affordable housing advisory
• Financial viability assessments
• Strategic asset management
• Portfolio rationalisation and utilisation optimisation
• Soft market testing
• Development land agency
• Developer procurement

Land Assembly and Compulsory Purchase is a complex area, involving delicate negotiations and precise legal and practical knowledge. Our team has the technical understanding and expertise to provide comprehensive advice for scheme promoters and property owners and occupiers.

Large scale infrastructure projects and town centre regeneration have become vital, bringing the management of Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPO) into the spotlight. All implications must be understood thoroughly while delays can be costly. If not managed efficiently, they derail public faith in a scheme, unsettle funding partners and throw projected timeframes into disarray.

Our solutions-focused team of Land Assembly and Compulsory Purchase experts have a wealth experience advising the UK’s largest acquiring authorities as well as a range of affected property owners and occupiers, from residential to complex specialist commercial operations. Our ability to provide comprehensive and accurate advice and financial projections is matched by our empathetic approach to land owners, making us a trusted advisor in this specialist discipline. Whether working with HS2, Thames Tideway Tunnel or various Local Authorities and Developers, we use our technical expertise to negotiate a responsible, fair and successful outcome.

Our core services include.

• Advising on infrastructure and regeneration for infrastructure providers and property owners/occupiers.
• Advising on the implications and effect of a scheme on property value and acquisition under CPO
• Preparing property cost estimates and advising on land assembly.
• Advising on making objections and appearing at Public Inquiry
• Supporting clients through the possession of land and property
• Valuation and preparation of compensation claims
• Negotiating with acquiring authorities and claimants
• Expert witness advice

More than ever, the UK is under pressure to deliver sustainable social and economic growth in the right places. We help clients build the robust evidence base needed to support this through the planning system.

Delivering housing, employment and regeneration growth requires a clear understanding of local needs, market dynamics and planning policy. From Local Plan preparation and development strategy to housing and employment land assessments, successful growth depends on robust evidence and a clear understanding of future opportunities and constraints. We help clients navigate these challenges and make informed decisions that support sustainable development.

Our Economics & Planning Policy team advises on some of the UK's most complex development, regeneration and growth projects. Working across the public and private sectors, we provide independent, evidence-led advice that supports planning applications, appeals, Local Plans and investment decisions. Our clients include Local Planning Authorities, the NHS, housebuilders, developers and landowners. With extensive experience supporting Local Plan Examinations and Public Inquiries, our experts are trusted to provide robust evidence on housing, employment and economic growth matters. By combining specialist planning, economic and market expertise with the wider capabilities of LSH, we deliver solutions that are both commercially viable and aligned with wider public policy objectives.

Our core services include:

•             Local Plan evidence and policy support

•             Planning applications and appeals

•             Housing need, housing mix and five-year housing land supply assessments

•             Employment need and employment land supply assessments

•             Strategic site identification, assessment and promotion

•             Economic benefits assessments

•             Socio-economic and environmental impact assessments

•             Demographic analysis and population forecasting

•             Expert witness services

Public sector organisations are facing a perfect storm of reduced budgets and a greater need for their services. What they need is a trusted partner to take responsibility for property management.

Many public sector organisations have large property portfolios - local government, blue light services, schools. While they focus on delivering essential services, they rarely have the capacity to employ a sufficient property management team in-house, leading to a risk that properties are inadequately managed or cannot deliver social value.

Our team is a trusted advisor to many of the UK’s leading public sector organisations. We can advise on acquisitions and disposals, asset management and expansion plans. Our experts slot in wherever our clients need them, offering a full cradle-to-grave service. As proven by our track record with the likes of Essex County Council, we have the scale and breadth to manage even the largest portfolios. We take away property pressures from our clients, so they can excel at delivering valuable services.

Our core services include;

• Agency-disposals and acquisitions
• Online auctions
• Valuations
• Asset Advisory
• Development Consultancy
• Planning Consultancy
• Schools’ advice
• Lease Advisory
• Property/Estate Management
• Treasury Functions
• Business Rates Appeals and Management
• Building Consultancy Services
• Telecoms 

Delivering residential developments, particularly affordable housing, in the UK has never been more challenging.

Economic pressures, including high interest rates, inflation and reduced government funding, make developments less viable, while uncertain market conditions further weaken investor confidence. Planning delays due to local authority resource constraints, fire safety legislation and evolving policies on affordable housing create uncertainty and prolonged project timelines. The need for optimising your opportunity and its delivery from first concept to building handover has never been more acute. This is where the Ikon team of residential specialists can help.

Strategic Development Advice

Our expertise has been utilised by private sector clients, Registered Providers (RP’s) and Local Authorities (LA’s) delivering their own developments or seeking a more involved development role. We help clients with a full range of development services, from scheme feasibility, value optimisation and viability, delivery structure, negotiations and due diligence, development management and s106 acquisitions and disposals. 

Financial Viability

Here, commercial acumen enables core assumptions to be sensibly pitched, a range of sensitivities to be considered and emerging cashflows assessed from a funder’s perspective. Financial modelling and business case assessment can be dealt with ‘under one roof’ meaning a joined-up approach to working with clients bringing wider efficiency, greater understanding and increased ability to improve viability.

Project Delivery

We provide expert project delivery services across Project Management, Employer’s Agent, Joint Venture Advisory, and Technical Advisory. Our team specialises in multi-phase regeneration, Build to Rent (BtR), market sale, senior living and affordable housing, successfully delivering major schemes like Greenwich Peninsula and Chobham Manor, as well as significant regeneration programmes across several local authorities, including Camden, Havering, Wandsworth and Harrow.

Working across the public, private and third sectors, we manage projects from small developments to large-scale urban regeneration. With deep market insight, we apply key performance metrics - spanning design, programme management, pre-manufactured value, ESG and social value across all tenure and build types. By integrating these with broader industry data, and our innovative systems and processes, we continuously drive project efficiency while ensuring homes are safe, high-quality and energy efficient.   

Our core services include:

• S106 Disposal
• Financial Viability assessments
• Scheme Optimisation
• Options evaluation and testing
• Procurement (Consultants/Contractors/Developers)
• Development solutions
• Project Management (RIBA 0-7)
• Employer’s Agent (RIBA 3-7)
• Development and Regeneration consultancy
• Affordable Housing
• Project Programming
• Team Workshop facilitation
• Defect Management (post PC)

The services of our established national transport and infrastructure team span the full sector with particular focus on rail and aviation operational property working in the associated regulatory and safety environment subject to complex and unique property interests.

We advise the likes of Virgin Atlantic, Menzies Aviation, Easyjet, Network Rail, First Group, HS2,  LNER, Northern Trains, Trenitalia c2c, Transpennine, Avanti West Coast, South Western Railway, Combined Authorities and local authorities. Together with the expertise of the wider LSH team, we provide an unrivalled holistic understanding of how to meet the challenges and opportunities in this sector.

 

Our services include:

• Operational aviation portfolio management and bespoke multi-disciplinary teams to work on any airport instruction we should be engaged on.
• Infrastructure & Regeneration Projects
• Station Gateway Schemes
• Estate management (including agency, property management, lease advisory, rating, full treasury & accounting services)
• Project management & Building Consultancy
• Sustainability advice
• Programme management
• Contract and performance management
• Contract administration
• Land Assembly & CPO
• Wider LSH complimentary expertise includes development, planning, town centre & economic regeneration and urban design advisers

 

Download our Stations Gateway Brochure

Download Service Line Sheet: Building Surveying

 

Download Service Line Sheet: Project Management

Our dedicated Telecoms consultancy team can help you maximise the value of your telecoms property portfolio with advice on portfolio strategy and individual site management.

We maintain extensive networks with all the major telecoms operators. This gives us insight into the latest commercial, technological and statutory developments in the telecoms market - insight that we use to help maximise the value of your portfolio.

From roof-top installations to new masts, from single and multi-site agreements to dealing with major network operators, our team is experienced in carrying out complex negotiations and operates nationwide.

We carry out hundreds of telecoms reviews, renewals and variations on behalf of our clients every year. Find out how we have helped our clients maximise the value of their telecoms portfolios

 

Strategic portfolio analysis

We will review your portfolio to establish the potential for increasing revenue, see how you might minimise holding costs and to assess potential receipts from either individual site or portfolio disposal.

 

Portfolio marketing

We can identify the sites in your portfolio that are most suitable for telecoms installation and market them proactively to the mobile phone operators.

 

Professional services

We offer lease renewal, lease restructuring and rent review advice to create tailored, telecoms-specific solutions for your portfolio.

 

Relocation or removal of operators

We can help facilitate redevelopment sites by managing the relocation of appropriate operators with minimum disruption.

 

New Site Identification

Working for the largest landowning clients across the country we can immediately identify new sites that would be suitable for new site roll-out.

Power Recovery

Many landlords have leases on their properties with mobile telecommunications networks.  These initiatives have driven revenue from otherwise unused rooftops, as well as providing mobile connectivity and coverage for residents and businesses.

However a limited number of these sites, in our experience shows that network operators may have connected into the building’s power supply, but landlords may have been unable to fully recharge the operators for the energy they have consumed, and these costs are rising.

LSH’s Telecoms team can rapidly identify and recover these costs through a detailed audit of your sites to determine where network operators have technically connected into a building’s electricity supply and where costs can be reimbursed.  Our fees re based on a percentage of the consumption costs recovered; no win, no fee.

Our towns are facing unprecedented challenges to their future vitality and viability. The drivers of change are bigger and more fundamental than we have ever witnessed before, and the COVID-19 pandemic that has gripped our nation and our lives has further accelerated these trends.

REGENERATE. REPURPOSE. REVITALISE.

Our multi-disciplinary team of town planners, development & investment consultants, urban designers & masterplanners, regeneration experts, economists and property consultants are advising on the recovery and transformation of towns, shopping centres and high streets across the UK.

Working in partnership with the public and private sectors, together with key stakeholders, we have a strong track record of delivering successful regeneration and mixed-use development projects that have helped to unlock the social, economic and environmental value of places for the benefit of all.

We can help navigate you through the regeneration lifecycle: from initial strategic visioning and viability testing to planning and delivery and beyond; we will help you breath new life into your centres, estates and assets.

Find out more here

Our Land & Development team operates extensively across the UK and offers expert advice on a variety of sites with potential for residential development.

The disposal and acquisition of Land & Development sites is an integral part of the Lambert Smith Hampton business which aligns us closely with our colleagues in the Connells Group. The Land & Development team work across the UK to support our clients in a wide range of consultancy and transactional operations. We are in a privileged position due to the size and support of our network and being part of the Connells Group empowers us even further to support any development structure and maximise the value of development sites for our clients.

We perform a wide range of disposals and acquisitions for our clients in commercial and residential markets ensuring we maximise value through thorough research of the opportunity. Our specialist knowledge and detailed due diligence allows us to consider the nuances of the sector and continually provide outstanding results:

Land	Development
Acquisition and Disposal	End Occupier Demand and Accommodation Requirements
Contract Negotiation	Projected Rental and Yield Levels
Option / Promotion Agreements	Physical and Legal Constraints
Planning Potential	Exit Engineering
Residential Valuation	Funding

Land & Development benefits from close collaboration between our colleagues in core relationships including the Planning team, Development Consultancy, Living (BtR) and New Homes.