FTB is a barristers’ chambers with a leading reputation for planning, environment, licensing, public law, compulsory purchase and land valuation, major infrastructure projects, local government law, rating, ecclesiastical and religious liberty, highways, commons and open spaces and ADR.
We are consistently recognised as a leading set by the market and directories because of the quality and number of leading practitioners we can provide, our major projects and our client base.
In May 2025, the Supreme Court held that the public’s right of access to the Dartmoor Commons (which is private land) includes the right to camp overnight. At the heart of the matter was a narrow point of statutory construction – namely whether “open-air recreation” in section 10(1) of the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 included the pitching of tents (see [14] of the judgment).
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The Highsted Park inquiry is an example of the high-profile planning work that FTB Chambers is involved in.
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When the State takes private land for a major infrastructure project, the law requires the dispossessed owner to be compensated for the value of their loss. Under the principle of equivalence, the former owner is entitled to neither more nor less than their actual loss. What that principle of equivalence means in practice, and how it is measured, was at the centre of a five-day hearing before the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) in March 2026.
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Net Zero Teesside is the United Kingdom's first "full-chain" carbon capture and storage project, and aims to be the world's first gas-fired power station to operate with carbon capture and storage. Granted development consent in February 2024, the project comprises a new gas-fired electricity generating station with post-combustion carbon capture, generating up to the equivalent of the average annual electricity needs of more than a million homes flexible, dispatchable low-carbon power. It also provides a network of pipelines to gather carbon dioxide from a cluster of industries on Teesside and offshore infrastructure to transport the captured carbon to storage beneath the North Sea. The plant is "mid-merit": designed to ramp up and down quickly to meet demand when intermittent renewables fall short, and so to help stabilise the grid as the country moves toward net zero.
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D.E.L.T.A. Merseyside Ltd and another v Uber Britannia Ltd [2025] UKSC 31
The difference between “black cabs” (or hackney carriages) and private hire vehicles is well known. The relevant regulatory context is, however, far from straightforward with the regulation of black cabs predating not just the smartphone but the car itself (as noted in UTAG v TFL [2022] EWCA Civ 1026, [1] (Where David Matthias KC and Charles Streeten represented the Appellant).
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Are you interested in public and administrative law, environmental law, or the legal process governing what gets built where and how? Then you may be interested in a career at the public and environmental Bar.Are you interested in public and administrative law, environmental law, or the legal process governing what gets built where and how? Then you may be interested in a career at the public and environmental Bar.
Are you interested in public and administrative law, environmental law, or the legal process governing what gets built, where and how? Then you may be interested in a career at the public, planning and environmental Bar.
Our 2026 seminar will concentrate on topical subjects with focussed sessions in one afternoon - ideal for busy practitioners. The seminar will focus on legal matters relevant to compulsory purchase and compensation and should be of benefit to all those working in this field including acquiring authority officers, solicitors, surveyors, planners, accountants and developers.
Questions of environmental justice, the climate crisis, biodiversity and resource management are among the defining issues of our time.
The Court of Appeal (King and Holgate LLJ and Dingemans SPT) has finished the hearing of Save Wimbledon Park’s appeal against the dismissal by Saini J of the judicial review of the Mayor of London’s decision to grant planning permission for a major expansion of the All England Club.
Harrow Council has successfully resisted Aldi’s appeal for a new out-of-centre foodstore at the former National Grid site on Marsh Lane, Stanmore. Following a four-day inquiry, the Inspector dismissed the appeal, finding that Aldi had failed to fully explore the potential for a foodstore at Anmer Lodge, an allocated mixed-use site in Stanmore town centre.
