Arjun’s role is to assist the planning team at HTA on a range of projects. Guiding proposals through the planning process and creating high-quality, sustainable new places for people to live, work and play. He also manages an independent workload, which includes work on feasibility studies for prospective development across the country, and works to progress several large-scale, residential-led development projects alongside private developers and local authority regeneration teams. As Planner, Arjun also helps manage projects on a day-to-day basis, which includes elements of project management and administration.

Arjun was previously a Planning Officer within the Strategic Development Team at Wandsworth Council, focusing on a range of applications for development principally within the Vauxhall, Nine Elms and Battersea Opportunity Area as well as around Clapham Junction and the Alton Estate, which are both areas which are undergoing significant investment and renewal.

In addition to this, Arjun was also an Assistant Planner in the City Planning team within Transport for London during his year in industry. In this capacity, Arjun represented TFL when responding to application consultation from the western and central London boroughs as well as pre-application meetings with the GLA. Arjun developed an eye for technical detail, learning during his time at TFL how to assess trip generation methodology and advise on the most appropriate junction modelling technique to best understand the traffic impacts of major new development.

Following the preparation of two planning applications for major mixed-use development in Southwark, Arjun was the day-to-day project lead who guided these two projects through to gaining planning permission. He has been involved in engagement with the public and local resident groups who wanted to better understand the proposals. Attending several pre-application meetings with the Council to help refine proposals to create great new places to live and work.

His planning background and knowledge of the planning process has come in particularly helpful in preparing separate planning applications for new homes on four challenging sites in an iconic new town in West Lancashire, Skelmersdale. Arjun engaged directly with Planning Officers, professional consultants, the client, and architects in HTA’s Manchester office during the course of determination. Helping secure recommendations for approval for proposals to build high-quality new homes which contribute to the character of the surrounding areas and provide much-needed affordable housing.  

For the Lakes Estate in Milton Keynes, Arjun assisted in preparing a hybrid planning application for the comprehensive redevelopment of a part of the estate, and the development of four associated infill sites and estate-wide environmental improvements. Arjun attended pre-application meetings with the Council and worked with HTA’s architects and landscape architects as well as a range of other professional consultants to help prepare the application, and engaged with the Council and the consultant team through the determination of the application to guide the scheme to a unanimous approval from the Council’s Planning Committee in October 2020.  

Arjun has been working as part of a multi-disciplinary team to prepare and submit a hybrid planning application for the redevelopment of the Joyce Avenue and Snell’s Park Estates in Edmonton, Enfield. He has both provided planning support to senior members of the team and taken responsibility for some of the project deliverables, administration, and engagement with the LPA, consultants, and other stakeholders. Arjun has attended many of the pre-application meetings and engagement events with the public and local groups and helped prepare a comprehensive Planning Statement and Affordable Housing Statement for this large-scale and complex estate regeneration project.

He is also working on two appeals against refusal of planning permission for the residential redevelopment of two sites in Croydon. One was refused under delegated powers, and another was refused at Planning Committee against the Officer recommendation. He helped to prepare these appeals and has been the day-to-day lead on both, working with the Planning Inspectorate and the Council to work towards a successful and timely outcome for both appeals which sees the delivery of a total of sixteen homes across both policy-compliant schemes.

Arjun is also preparing a Community Needs Assessment for another regeneration project in Islington. He has had to interrogate the Council’s adopted and emerging Local Plan and supporting evidence base. Further understanding the need for community space to make a robust case within the Assessment. These demonstrates how the proposals, which include a small loss of community floorspace, are compliant from a planning policy perspective. Arjun has worked with the client team to construct this argument, advising them on how the relevant detailed planning policies are to be interpreted and what they require.