The Planning and Environmental Bar Association’s Annual Conference for 2025 looks at some of the components of our planning and environmental decisions and how to apply them with coherence. The theme of the 2025 Conference is a positive one – it is a Conference which looks to the professions to find and develop that coherence in planning and environmental decisions. With contributions from those who lead in law and practice, the Conference will look at existing and emerging law, policy and guidance to identify ways to make the best use of the inter-locking tool kit of the planning and environmental regimes.
Who is best placed to make decisions? How should experts go about informing those decisions? When separate but related regimes are in play, what helps to make them work well together? What do appeal decisions and legal issues tell us about the pinch-points and areas of risk?
Keynote speakers: Lord Sales, Justice of the Supreme Court; Peter Ashford (Office of Environmental Protection)
Speakers and panellists: Tom Cosgrove KC (PEBA Chair); Victoria Hutton, Morag Ellis KC, James Maurici KC, William Upton KC, Rebecca Phillips (Profession Lead, PINS), Christopher Katkowski KC; Emmaline Lambert; Thea Osmund-Smith,
Sasha White KC, Stephanie Bruce-Smith, Claire Nevin,
Convenor: Richard Kimblin KC
Programme
9.30am Registration and refreshments
10.00am Welcome and Introduction from PEBA Chair – Hannah Quarterman (Hogan Lovells) and Tom Cosgrove KC (Cornerstone Barristers)
Keynote Address – ‘Climate change and the future of tort law: responding to systemic risk and expanding liability’ The Rt. Hon Lord Sales – Justice of the Supreme Court
Whose decision is it anyway? – Emmaline Lambert (Cornerstone Barristers) and Victoria Hutton (39 Essex Chambers)
Refreshments
Experts – a panel discussion on best practice and being effective Morag Ellis KC (Francis Taylor Building), James Maurici KC (Landmark Chambers), William Upton KC (6 Pump Court), Rebecca Phillips (PINS)
Infrastructure and reform – Christopher Katkowski CBE KC (Kings Chambers) and Thea Osmund-Smith (No5 Chambers)
1.15pm Lunch
Keynote Address: How to translate environmental targets into the planning regime – Peter Ashford (OEP)
Current themes in appeal decisions – Sasha White KC (Landmark Chambers) Case law update – Stephanie Bruce-Smith and Claire Nevin (Francis Taylor Building)
Concluding Remarks – (Richard Kimblin KC – PEBA Conference Convenor)
4.00pm Conference Close – Tom Cosgrove KC (PEBA Chair)
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