Robbie Owen

Robbie has almost 30 years’ experience of advising, mainly promoters, on the planning and consenting of a wide variety of nationally significant and major transport and other infrastructure projects in theUK and he is widely regarded as one of the top infrastructure planning lawyers in the UK market.

He is a ‘Roll A’ Parliamentary Agent - one of only 20 or so practising lawyers authorised by the Westminster Parliament to act as agent for those promoting and opposing Private and Hybrid Bills in Parliament –which means that he understands particularly well the principles and issues underlying the statutory authorisation of major infrastructure projects by DCOs, TWA Orders or other means, because to a large extent those principles and issues are rooted in the practice relating to major infrastructure project authorisation directly by Parliament. As a result, he is an expert in the drafting, promotion and interpretation of Development Consent Orders as well as other Orders and legislative instruments and has been working in this area for his entire career.

Robbie is very familiar with the NSIPs regime and the DCO process, having worked with government on it since 2006 in relation to the White Paper and the Bill for the Planning Act 2008. He is the founder, a Director and the Secretary of the National Infrastructure Planning Association (NIPA), which was set up by him in 2010 to assist with the implementation of the Planning Act 2008 NSIPs regime. As a result he has been at the forefront of changes to that regime brought in by the Localism Act 2011, the Growth and Infrastructure Act 2013 and the Infrastructure Act 2015 and he continues to work with government on that reform agenda, e.g. the ‘related housing’ provisions in the Housing and Planning Act 2016.

Robbie was a member of the UK’s National Infrastructure Plan Strategic Engagement Forum (NIPSEF) between 2010 and 2015 and he sits on DCLG’s National Infrastructure Planning Sounding Board. Between 2013 and 2015 he supported the Armitt Infrastructure Review and in particular drafted the Draft Bill that proposed the establishment of a National Infrastructure Commission, a concept now taken forward by the Government in this Parliament. He was a member of the National Needs Assessment Executive Group, an independent group chaired by Sir John Armitt and which reported on long term UK infrastructure needs in October 2016, in advance of the National Infrastructure Commission’s National Infrastructure Assessment being prepared up to 2018. He is a member of the National Infrastructure Commission’s Technical Advisory Group established inOctober 2016.

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Robbie’s experience includes:

• Since summer 2015, Robbie has led the team advising Heathrow Airport Limited on the National Policy Statement (NPS) for the 3rd runway expansion programme and other aspects of the project including consenting routes and strategy, optioneering, landowner interfaces and DCO processes and procedures.
• Since 2013, Robbie has led the team on all aspects of advising Highways England on the planning and consenting of the A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon DCO for a £1.5bn improvement scheme. This is by some margin the largest roads DCO to be applied for and the DCO was successfully made in May 2016, with no judicial review following.
• Since 2011, Robbie has led the team advising Transport for London on the package of new river crossings in East London, including the proposed Silvertown Tunnel DCO, the application for which is currently undergoing Examination. Robbie is leading the legal team that has advised on all aspects of the DCO application including (NPS) support, options selection, the needs case, statements of common ground, pre-application consultation, EIA, land acquisition and property interfaces, document preparation, the wider consents strategy and road user charging, amongst other matters
• Advising Luton Borough Council in 2012 and 2013 on its successful DCO to authorise improvements to the M1 Junction 10a, now constructed and open to traffic. Robbie was responsible for the overall legal input on the project, advising on all aspects of the scheme including pre-application consultation, EIA, transport and traffic assessments, the needs case, land acquisition, stakeholder negotiation and objector management, application document preparation including drafting the DCO, and procedural matters.
• Robbie has led legal teams advising on the successful authorisation of rail schemes in London, Birmingham, Merseyside and Nottingham, including the DLR extensions to London City Airport, Woolwich Arsenal and Stratford International and the Northern Line Extension to Battersea now under construction. He has experience of road user charging and related issues, having advised on Mersey Tunnels tolls, Mersey Gateway, Silvertown Tunnel (ongoing) and Nottingham’s workplace parking levy.
• Since 2013 Robbie has advised over 30 different public and private sector interests (including TfL and the Mayor of London) on the HS2 Phase 1 (London to West Midlands) Hybrid Bill.