Claire Saffer

Expertise

Claire is an experienced planning solicitor and provides timely, commercial and pragmatic advice to clients across a broad range of sectors on all stages of the development process.

She has over 12 years’ experience of advising on the planning aspects of acquisitions and disposals, agreements for lease and property management matters in order to minimise planning risk.  She has a wealth of experience drafting and negotiating agreements to enable development, including section 106 and highways agreements.

Claire also advises on matters including interpretation of planning permissions and conditions, application and appeal strategy and Community Infrastructure Levy. Her experience also encompasses contentious matters such as planning inquiries, enforcement and judicial review.

Claire Advises

• Property developers
• Institutional investors
• Property investment and holding companies
• Banks
• Landlords and tenants
• Retail and leisure clients
• HNW individuals

Experience Highlights

• Negotiating the section 106 agreement with Westminster Council for the redevelopment of the former Foyle’s building on Charing Cross Road for a 300,000 sq. ft. mixed-use, office-led development
• Advising on the planning aspects of a the £48mn acquisition of the Royal Liver Building, Liverpool which lies within the UNESCO World Heritage Waterfront
• Negotiating an agreement with Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for a mixed-use scheme involving a land-use swap for 172,561 sq. ft. of office, residential and retail accommodation in Victoria, with a £10mn initial affordable housing contribution subject to a viability review mechanism
• Agreement with and bond in favour of Southampton City Council for highways works including traffic regulation orders in connection with the construction of two distribution warehouse parks (253,383 sq. ft. and 202,147 sq. ft. respectively), one built for John Lewis as a dot com delivery hub, located at strategic motorway locations
• Advising a developer client on a proposed new student accommodation development and the interaction with the HMO licensing regime
• Working in conjunction with the real estate and corporate teams advising on the share sale of an LLP for £39mn with significant planning issues including historic and ongoing breaches of planning control and a retention sum linked to satisfactory resolution of these breaches; drafting the planning conditionality in the SPA.
• Advising on conjoined planning and enforcement appeals for a leisure-sector client whose 100+ year old family business was threatened with closure by Westminster City Council, successfully securing planning permission and avoiding the need for a hearing
• Advising developer client in judicial review proceedings brought by a residents’ action group against the grant of planning permission for a mixed-use residential-led development in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea

Career History

Previous Law Firms

• Director, Saffer Legal Consulting
• Senior Associate, Forsters
• Associate, CMS
• Solicitor, CMS
• Trainee solicitor, CMS

Education

• BPP Law School – GDL and LPC
• University of Bristol – BA (Hons), French and Spanish