Susan Ehlinger

Expertise

Susan specialises in planning law and is involved in the Planning team’s full offering – from drafting and negotiating section 106 agreements, advising on strategy and the planning regime generally (including planning enforcement), town and village green issues, through to providing highway advice.

Susan has extensive experience in a range of property types, including in the residential, retail, hotel, and manufacturing and distribution sectors. Her planning expertise is therefore wide-ranging and encompasses many high value cases. Susan also regularly works for a number of well-known companies and national brands.

Susan is dual-qualified since, prior to qualifying as a solicitor, she had a successful career as a chartered surveyor attaining FRICS status in 2004. Susan began her surveying career as a planning consultant in a national practice and went on to spend 14 years as the property director of a Plc. This role involved managing manufacturing and distribution projects in the automotive components sector globally and included bringing redundant sites forward for redevelopment, as well as optimising land value through the planning regime. Susan therefore has vast relevant commercial, practical and technical experience in the corporate world.
 
Susan also devises and presents bespoke legal training programmes for her clients. As she has been a client herself, Susan prides herself on these being relevant and of practical benefit. 

Experience

1. Advising on, drafting and finalising a complex section 106 agreement for an urban extension comprising 1,100 houses for a well-known housebuilder. 
2. Advising a retail developer client on the law in relation to acquiring and developing a site comprising a public house listed as an asset of community value. 
3. Successfully advising on an objection to a town and village green application which threatened to obstruct a significant housing development; including acting on behalf of the developer in respect of a challenge by judicial review and a public inquiry.
4. Advising a developer client and successfully defeating an application for a footpath and bridleway, which would have severely hindered the proposed residential development for which planning permission had been obtained. 
5. Advising a landowner on the grounds for an appeal under the Environmental Impact Assessment (Agriculture) (England) (No.2) Regulations 2006 and submitting written appeal submissions to DEFRA (appeals currently undetermined).