Richard
Sagar

Richard is a Partner specialising in planning and environmental work, especially contentious matters.  He is known within the planning industry for his straightforward advice and planning appeal advocacy. He is particularly active for major housebuilders and developers, as well as giving advice on industrial and distribution developments.  His work includes High Court challenges and Compulsory Purchase.

Tactical expertise the key to success

Richard enjoys helping clients take tactical and strategic decisions, to guide them through the “mine field” that obtaining planning permission has become. So often it’s these elements of the process that can turn a poor or average case into a winner, or a recommendation for refusal into a permission.

Richard feels that “complex development proposals require tactical decision making and thorough testing of the evidence in support of a proposal, from the beginning” – and his clients agree, having come to expect “application and appeal victories that others may not secure”.

Richard is consistently rated as one of the UK’s top planning solicitors in Planning Magazine, the leading publication for planning professionals and also has extensive experience of working alongside Counsel should the case require.

Thought and time

Describing his approach to work as detailed, forensic, hands on and thorough, Richard is clear that the long hours of reading, digesting and preparing for a tricky case can be challenging, but his mantra that “thought and time will provide the best answer to most things” inevitably holds true.

A collegiate way of working

Endorsed by the ‘Best Lawyers in the United Kingdom’ directory for Planning, Richard is noted for “a forensic, dogged approach to dealing with issues and the formulation of strategy” and his collegiate way of working is very much in tempo with life at Walker Morris, where the whole team takes a similar approach.