Francis Taylor Building

Hugh Flanagan has a practice encompassing all aspects of planning, major infrastructure, and compulsory purchase law. He specialises particularly in energy (including renewables), transport, waste, and residential projects, as well as compensation, land valuation and rating. He acts for developers, individuals, central government and local authorities. He frequently appears in courts and tribunals at all levels up to the Supreme Court, as well as at planning inquiries and examinations. He is a member of the Attorney General's A Panel of Counsel, in which capacity he acts for the Government in significant planning and public law cases, and he is an editor of the Encyclopaedia of Compulsory Purchase and Compensation and Ryde on Rating. He has been shortlisted for Planning and Land Use Junior of the Year by the Legal 500 Bar Awards 2024 and is consistently ranked as a top-rated junior in Planning Magazine’s survey.

Hugh is ranked as a leading junior in the Legal 500 and described in Chambers and Partners as “a very talented junior who can more than hold his own in the company of KCs” (2017), "a standout junior" (2022) and “very strong at written advocacy and a very neat cross-examiner – the sort of person who gets his opponent to make unforced errors” (2020).

Recent examples of his work include:

• Acting for EDF Energy in promoting the Sizewell C nuclear power station
• Acting for Scottish Power Renewables in promoting the East Anglia One North and East Anglia Two offshore windfarms
• Acting for Heathrow Airport Limited in relation to its plans for a third runway
• Acting for Network Rail in promoting the expansion of Oxford station
• Appearing for London City Airport in securing planning permission for its airport expansion
• Appearing for the valuation officer in the Supreme Court in Telereal Trillium v Hewitt [2019] UKSC 23