Heatons are delighted that Chris Hemmingsley joined the team in 2024 as a Planning Director. Chris is tasked with developing and leading a new southern region for the company and, as a specialist in Development Consent Orders (DCO) Chris also heads up a new service line in DCO advisory and delivery for the business.
A chartered town planner and infrastructure planning specialist with over 23 years’ experience; Chris provides strategic advice, often ‘embedded’ within the client team, on DCO schemes and also project manages major planning applications.
Chris has a wealth of experience in a number of sectors including minerals, waste, water, nuclear, energy, solar, transport, heritage and telecommunications. Prior to joining Heatons, Chris was the Southwest Regional Director for Infrastructure Planning & Engagement at WSP. Chris has also held senior roles at GL Hearn, Arcadis, Transport for London, Brett Group, EDF Energy and Severn Trent Water. Through these roles Chris has managed the consents delivery of a number high profile DCO schemes including Hinkley Point C, Silvertown Tunnel, Lower Thames Crossing and The River Thames Scheme as well as managing the planning process for numerous major planning applications for quarry and landfill sites, water and wastewater schemes, telecoms development and highways.
Get to know Chris:
Can you describe your role at Heatons
I probably have three core strands to my role at Heatons:
- Developing the southern region – we have a range of fantastic clients already in the south. I want to build on this bringing more local knowledge and availability expanding our offering to these clients and expand our reach to new clients across all sectors. Ultimately this will involve building a southern team which I want to have based strategically across the south of the country.
- Delivering and Growing the DCO service line – this is a specialism I am passionate about and have strong links to. It is such a fascinating and complex world that delivers challenges every day, the buzz of working on the scale and significance of these projects is so rewarding. My aim is to grow our DCO client base and service offering bringing in and training up a new generation of DCO consenting experts.
- Project work – I am still heavily involved in all our DCO projects, I am also advising clients on Minerals & Waste applications reinvigorating my experience and contacts from working in the industry some years ago.
Can you describe a DCO and how this differs to more common forms of planning
A Development Consent Order, or DCO for short, is a specific consenting route set out in the Planning Act 2008. DCO’s are the consenting route for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) and provide a very structured approach to consenting. DCO’s are naturally often very complex, and are cross boundary and require significant land take. The process may, on the face of it look similar to the stages of a major planning application, but in reality, this is not the practical case in delivery. The output of a DCO is a piece of statute, often affording the developer compulsory purchase powers and other bespoke legal power alongside the planning consent; as such the procedural and legal process that must be followed is very prescriptive and time consuming. Post DCO grant delivery is also a lot more complex than a standard planning approval with a significant number of post grant consents still being required.
How did you get involved in DCO’s
After a number of years in the telecoms and water sectors I was after a new challenge. This was in the early days of the DCO process with only couple of DCO determinations having then taken place. A role at EDF Energy as the onsite planning lead working on the post DCO grant consenting for Hinkley Point C came up. The rest as they say is history, I have since lead on the Delivery phase of the Silvertown Tunnel for TfL and worked on the pre-application phases of a number of DCO’s including Lower Thames Crossing and River Thames Scheme.
What do you enjoy most about your role at Heatons
The variety. As well as DCO advisory, which is my work passion, I have a great variety of project work that keeps me engaged in all types and scale of project which keeps the planning problem solving brain active. I was also very keen to use my skills and experience from past leadership roles to develop something new and with the Southern region and the business development, business strategy and leadership that brings I get the best of all worlds.