Brendan has wide experience across all areas of planning law and regularly appears as sole counsel in planning appeals (at both inquiries and hearings), local plan examinations, planning statutory reviews, and planning-related judicial reviews. His has also appeared in planning-related criminal matters in magistrates and Crown courts.

Recent cases include:

• Acting for the successful defendant, the Mayor of London, in a judicial review of the planning permission for an extension to the All-England Lawn Tennis Club, led by Mark Westmorland Smith KC (R (Save Wimbledon Park Ltd) v Mayor of London [2025] EWHC 1856 (Admin);
• Acting for the successful claimant, led by Charles Streeten, in the Court of Appeal in Greenfields (IOW) Ltd v Isle of Wight Council [2025] EWCA Civ 488;
• Acting for the claimant in a judicial review of a zip-line leisure activity centre in slate quarry in the Lake District National Park (R (Friends of the Lake District) v Lake District National Park Authority [2025] EWHC 2630 (Admin));
• Acting for the claimant in a judicial review of a large solar farm development.

Brendan welcomes instructions from all those interested in the planning process, including local authorities, developers, local residents, and community groups. 

Environmental matters are of considerable importance in town and country planning and infrastructure planning. Brendan has gained experience dealing with habitats and environmental impact assessments, including successfully obtaining the quashing of development consent for the Norfolk Vanguard windfarm on grounds relating to inadequate assessment of cumulative landscape effects and dealing with complex habitats assessment issues in an enforcement appeal relating to development at Whitstable beach. He frequently provides advice and appears in litigation relating to renewable energy developments, Priority Habitats, and the application of local and national policy relating to the environment and ‘green’ infrastructure.

He has experience relating to the identification and remediation of contaminated land, including acting, led by Meyric Lewis KC, in a judicial review as to the contaminated land status of a large former landfill site in Havering (R (Clean the Air in Havering) v Havering London Borough Council [2025] EWHC 1492 (Admin)).

In addition, Brendan has acted for the Secretary of State for BEIS in a number of appeals in the First Tier Tribunal arising from the ‘Green Deal’ legislation, including the lead case of Heaney v Secretary of Sate for Energy Security and Net Zero [2024] UKUT 345 (AAC). He also has experience relating to private and statutory nuisance, the Renewable Heat Incentive, and the energy efficiency regulation of energy-using products.

He has acted in a number of recent cases which have examined the applicability and operation  of Aarhus costs protection in judicial and statutory reviews, including Green Lane Association v Central Bedfordshire Council [2025] EWHC 2251 (Admin).

Brendan welcomes instructions relating to the Commons Act 2006 and Commons Registration Act 1965, in which he has a particular interest. Recent examples of such work include:

• acting for a Welsh local authority in successfully resisting the registration of housing land as a town and village green;
• promoting registration of open space in Somerset as a green;
• advising the commons registration authority in respect of the registration of urban land as a town and village green;
• advising a landowner about obtaining consent for works to common land to facilitate a renewable energy development; and
• advising the owner of farmland as to the removal of the land from the register of common land.

His is currently instructed in complex judicial review proceedings relating to common land and agricultural subsidies.

Brendan also advises and acts for a range of interested parties in relation to open land, parks, and recreational areas within London (including Brockwell Park, Victoria Park, London Fields, and Hackney Downs) and in other towns and cities. 

He also has experience advising and litigating in all areas of law relating to rights of way. He has recently bee instructed in matters including:

• acting for the successful claimant in a statutory review of the making an experimental traffic order restricting the use of a unmetalled road by motorised vehicles (Green Lane Association Limited v Central Bedforshire Council [2026] EWHC 26 (Admin));
• a number of matters relating to the addition of rights of way to the definitive map and statement for both landowners and applicants;
• advising a number of London borough councils on the creation and modification of schemes for traffic control (including ‘school streets’, ‘modal filters’, and similar schemes)

Other work in this area includes acting in a number of appeals in the First Tier Tribunal against the listing of land as assets of community value

Brendan has gained experience across a wide range of public law issues, at policy development, operational, and litigation stages. Brendan is well-versed in advising on both substantive and procedural public law matters, including the scope and exercise of secondary and delegated powers; procedural fairness (including adequacy of consultation, the duty to give reasons, and legitimate expectations), the discharge of the public sector quality duty.  

Recent public law cases include:

• Acting in a judicial review as to the contaminated land status of a large former landfill site in Havering led by Meyric Lewis KC (R (Clean the Air in Havering) v Havering London Borough Council [2025] EWHC 1492 (Admin));
• Acting for the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero in the large body of litigation in the First-tier Tribunal relating to the sanctions imposed for the misselling of home energy improvements under the Green Deal;
• Appearing in cases relating to the applicability of Aarhus cost protection in environmental law claims – i.e. those alleging breaches of national law relating to the environment – including Green Lane Association v Central Bedfordshire Council [2025] EWHC 2251 (Admin);
• Appearing as junior counsel for the claimant in pending judicial review proceedings of decisions relating to agricultural subsidies, including legacy (including pre-Brexit) schemes.

Brendan is extremely conversant with the nature and exercise of local authority powers and duties. In addition to planning, highways and open spaces (dealt with elsewhere in this profile), Brendan has experience dealing with members’ conduct issues, decision-making procedures, and the ‘primary authority principle’. Brendan has spent time ‘embedded’ in local authority legal teams, assisting internal lawyers to deliver timely and accurate advice and providing legal training.

Brendan has appeared in some of the most significant recent cases in this area, including as junior counsel for the Secretary of State for Transport in Cemex v Secretary of State for Transport (LC-2023-404) relating to the compulsory acquisition of a site which housed three of the claimant’s businesses: a cement works, an aggregate depot, and a railway sleeper factory.

He is also instructed as junior counsel for the Secretary of State in the four compensation claims relating to the acquisition of the land requires for HS2’s Birmingham terminal at Curzon Street, and acted in the CAAD appeals for all four sites that were determined in the Lands Chambers during 2025 and early 2026, the last of which was Secretary of State for Transport v Curzon Park Limited [2026] UKUT 73 (LC).

Brendan has experience advising on international, EU, EU Exit law, and retained EU law in relation to:

• international road safety law, including autonomous vehicles;
• type-approval of vehicles under international and EU law;
• regulation of energy-using products;
• the provisions of and powers under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018;
• State Aid and the General Block Exemption Regulation; 
• SEA and EIA Directives and their implementing UK legislation in England and Wales;
• the Aarhus Convention, including access to information (under the Environmental Information Regulations) and procedural (including costs capping in judicial review);
• Habitats Directive and Regulations.

• ‘‘There’s Nothing Left to Do but Sing’ - Recent Developments in the Regulation of Combined Sewage Overflows’, FTB Chambers Quarterly Environmental Law Review on 11 October 2022
• ‘‘Planning for data and storage’ [2021] Journal of Planning and Environmental Law 2021 Issue 7 (787-795) – with Morag Ellis KC.
• CBD: regulatory straitjacket meets light-touch enforcement’, Journal of Licensing (26, March 2020) – with Leo Charalambides.
• ‘Towards a mellower form of cannabis regulation’, Journal of Licensing (27, July 2020) – with  Gary Grant
• ‘Planning for data and storage’ [2021] Journal of Planning and Environmental Law 2021 Issue 7 (787-795) – with Morag Ellis KC

• 2017: BPTC (BPP)
• 2016: Winston Churchill Scholarship (Middle Temple)
• 2016: Master of Laws (University College, London)
• 2015: Graduate Diploma in Law (Oxford Brookes University)
• 2014: Benefactors’ Scholarship (Middle Temple)
• 2014: BA (Hons) Ancient and Modern History (Somerville College, Oxford)
• 2012: Hodge Exhibition in Ancient and Modern History; College Prize (Somerville College, Oxford)

• Member of the Compulsory Purchase Association
• Member of the Chartered Institute for Arbitrators
• Member of the Planning and Environment Bar Association

Privacy Notice