Practice Summary

Richard Langham was called to the Bar in 1986. Until the formation of Landmark Chambers in October 2002 he was a member of the specialist planning and local government Chambers led by Sir Frank Layfield QC and later Lionel Read QC.

Richard specialises in town and country planning and related environmental and local government law. He regularly appears at public inquiries, in the County and High Court and in the Lands Tribunal. He has acted for a wide range of developers, commercial concerns and amenity groups and for numerous local authorities and other public bodies throughout England and Wales.

Planning and Local Government Law

Richard’s practice covers all aspects of planning (including development plans, planning agreements, minerals, trees, listed buildings and conservation areas), advertisement control, highways, traffic regulation, open spaces, compulsory purchase and compensation, statutory undertakers, pollution control, waste regulation and related local government law. Having appeared in the seminal case on the duty to make inquiries when taking enforcement action against travellers, R v Lincolnshire County Council ex p Atkinson etc, Richard has acted in many of the recent controversial gypsy cases, including the much-publicized Court of Appeal case FSS, Doe and Yates v Chichester Divisional Court and litigation concerning the notorious gypsy sites at Smithy Fen, Cottenham, Cambs and North Curry, Taunton. He has particular experience of injunction and contempt proceedings and acted for the local planning authority in the first Court of Appeal decision on the jurisdiction to make planning injunctions against persons unknown (South Cambridgeshire DC v Persons Unknown).

In recent years Richard has been involved in the litigation concerning the use by London Borough Councils of their draconian powers against advertising hoardings under s11 of the London Local Authorities Act 1995, including the leading cases of R (Maiden Outdoor Advertising) v Lambeth LBC and R (Clear Channel) v Southwark LBC.

Environmental Law

Richard has expertise in core areas of environmental law including statutory nuisance (especially abatement notice appeals and cases stated), the assessment of noise, flooding, environmental impact assessment, the Environmental Permitting Regulations, waste, contaminated land, rivers and waterways and the water industry.  He is involved in the ongoing litigation concerning the environmental impact of waste recycling operations at Charlton Field Lane, Keynsham.  He is a joint editor of Environmental Law (Oxford University Press, 2^nd edition due in 2009).

Property Law

Richards practice also covers those areas of property law most closely related to the development of land, including conditional contracts, options, restrictive covenants, easements and the rights of statutory undertakers against private land.