Oakwood Business Park, Clacton-on-Sea
Britton Construction Ltd


Greenfield employment scheme secured against competing sites and complex reserved matters managed.

The Council was faced with competing sites to accommodate a large part of its Structure Plan, employment land requirement. We successfully promoted our client’s interest on a 16 ha greenfield site. This was then documented in a Council produced Planning Brief.

We subsequently translated the Council’s position into an outline planning permission. To achieve permission it was necessary to gain support from the strategic planning authority (Essex), manage the removal of archaeological constraints, establish a landscape strategy, and coordinate the resolution of highway issues. We also negotiated an extension to an existing bus service (with appropriate implementation triggers). Despite the greenfield location, the Secretary of State did not intervene probably because of the justification that all this work provided.

The reserved matters application for 450,000ft² of B1/B2/B8 space was delayed to within a day of the three year deadline. The submission had, therefore, to be 100% correct in order not to risk voiding the permission. It also needed to reflect potential market interest. We coordinated the submission of a considerable volume of design and landscape drawings, reviewing everything against the outline permission’s conditions and negotiated with the Council to secure permission ahead of the Council’s target date.