Burges Salmon’s role in the delivery of National Highways’ A417 Missing Link project has been recognised by the National Infrastructure Planning Association (NIPA), which won the NIPA Infrastructure Award at a ceremony held last night. The project is a landscape-led highways scheme that will deliver a safe and resilient free-flowing road while conserving and enhancing the special character of its immediate surroundings, the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The project was praised for its “consequential and exemplary approach to designing a landscape-led highways scheme with a clear narrative to embed design into delivery” and for “genuinely listening to stakeholders and changing design accordingly”. One of the judges also commented that securing consent for a scheme in an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, “within the statutory timescales and without subsequent legal challenge is nothing short of remarkable”.

Alex Minhinick, a partner the Planning & Compulsory Purchase team at Burges Salmon, accepted the award alongside National Highways and Arup. Alex represented National Highways on the scheme throughout the development consent order (DCO) process for the scheme, successfully leading to the Transport Minister approving its DCO in November last year.

Alex commented: “The way in which the project progressed through the different stages, from engagement with stakeholders, design and submission all the way through consent, has been a real collaborative effort and our win at the NIPA awards is a tribute to everyone involved in the scheme.”

Nationally recognised for its expertise and the quality of work it undertakes, Burges Salmon’s Planning team is a market-leader in the consenting of nationally significant infrastructure projects. The team acts for public and private sector clients through the whole development process, from consenting strategy to legal challenge