Constanze Bell

Practice Areas

Planning & Environment, Public Law, Local Government & Licensing

Career

Constanze practices in all areas of town and country planning law, including in the specialist areas of compulsory purchase and highways. Her clients include developers, local planning authorities and local action groups. She regularly appears in inquiries as an advocate and is instructed to both bring and defend statutory challenges in the High Court. She has a busy advisory practice and regularly assists with complex enforcement cases, submissions for local plan consultations and advice regarding prospects of success on appeal. Constanze was the 'Highest Rated Planning Juniors under 35' and a ‘Top-rated Planning Junior’ (2024 Planning Resource Planning Law survey).

She is Assistant Editor of the third edition of Patterson and Karim on Judicial Review. She is a Specialist Contributor to the judicial review chapter to Bullen & Leake (First Supplement, 19th Edition). She is also a member of the Kings Chambers author team who write for and produce the quarterly bulletin for the Encyclopaedia of Local Government Law.

Constanze is a member of the Environmental Law Foundation and is willing to consider acting pro bono when instructed by ELF in appropriate cases.

Constanze is a committee member of the ‘Women in Planning’ network’s Yorkshire branch. She was recognised as a ‘Woman of Influence’ in The Planner magazine’s 2022 feature and was a judge for the 2023 ‘Woman of Influence’ list.

Professional Memberships

PEBA (Planning & Environmental Bar Association)

ELF (Environmental Law Foundation)

Women in Planning

Northern Circuit/ North Eastern Circuit

Publications

Lowrison Bell, C. Judicial Review. In: Bullen & Leake & Jacob’s Precedents of Pleadings. First Supplement, Nineteenth Editions, London: Sweet & Maxwell.

Lowrison Bell, C. Practice and Procedure. In: Karim KC, S. and Lowrison Bell, C. eds. Patterson & Karim on Judicial Review. Third Edition, London: Jordan Publishing.

‘Local Authorities’ Investigative Powers in Trading Standards’, (November 2019) Encyclopaedia of Local Government Law Bulletin, Sweet & Maxwell

‘Civil Restraint Orders in Law and Practice’, (August 2019) Encyclopaedia of Local Government Law Bulletin, Sweet & Maxwell

‘R. (oao Hollow) v Surrey CC [2019] EWHC 618 (Admin): Case Comment’, (March 2019) Encyclopaedia of Local Government Law Bulletin, Sweet & Maxwell

Legal Landscape, ‘Communities & Decision Making’, (May 2019), The Planner magazine, (republished by The Consultation Institute in their digital newsletter, June 2019)

Bell, C., Sustainable Development in English Planning Policy: A Lawyer’s Perspective, WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, Volume 217, WIT Press, 2018, ISSN 1743-3541 (presented as a paper at the 10th International Conference on Sustainable Development & Planning at the University of Siena, Italy)

Work Highlights

Recent hearing and inquiry work includes:

Planning enforcement cases concerning use classes, material change of use by intensification and abandonment.

A s.78 appeal regarding a residential development next to a haulage yard and the ‘agent of change’ principle.

A s.78 appeal concerning human rights and the PSED where the proposals concerned would lead to the dissolution of a well-established community.

CPO inquiries regarding the acquisition of derelict and empty properties.

Residential planning appeals for major residential development Oxfordshire (junior to Sarah Reid KC).

Residential development of the last vacant plot on the Newcastle Quayside (junior to Paul G Tucker KC).

Recent court cases include: R (FOWOC) v West Oxfordshire DC & Harper Crewe Ltd [2023] EWHC 1361 (Admin) concerning implementing a planning permission which is subsequently quashed; R (oao Rodwell) v St Albans City and District Council [2021] EWHC 2009 (Admin) concerning the adequacy of the reasoning to grant planning permission; appearing for Liverpool City Council (junior to Paul Tucker KC) in (R (LOGS) v Liverpool CC & Redrow Homes Ltd [2020] EWCA Civ 861 concerning the interpretation of Liverpool’s ‘green wedge’ policies; and R v Roderick Bloor [2020] EWCA Crim 402 concerning the amount of a fine imposed for failing to comply with an enforcement notice.

Experience

Before coming to the bar Constanze worked in the NGO sector. She was part of the legal team for ‘Control Arms’, a coalition of NGOs working to secure a human-rights orientated Arms Trade Treaty and attended the July 2012 Arms Trade Treaty Diplomatic Conference and negotiations at the UN in New York.

Constanze retains an active interest in human rights law and, in particular, in planning, regulatory and environmental cases involving human rights issues.

In 2022 Constanze was awarded a Pegasus Scholarship and undertook a 3-month placement with Chapman Tripp, Wellington.

Awards