29 06 2024
Planning Magazine’s Law Survey 2024 features 37 Landmark barristers
Sasha has a particular interest in environmental-related matters in public and planning law, and spent time on a Pegasus scholarship in Australia and New Zealand examining their system of environmental and planning courts. Sasha has also been a Trustee and Director of Forum for the Future and has been a Trustee and Director of the United Kingdom Environmental Law Association as a member of the Governing Council.
Sasha spent her first year of tenancy as a Judicial Assistant to the Law Lords (Lord Scott of Foscote, Baroness Hale of Richmond and Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury), working on cases before both the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords and the Privy Council. She gained substantial experience of appellate advocacy and judicial practice during that year. Cases she worked on in the House of Lords as a judicial assistant included, R v. London Borough of Bromley, ex parte Barker [2006] UKHL 52 and Belfast City Council v Miss Behavin Limited [2007] UKHL 19.
In September 2020, Sasha was appointed to the Attorney General’s A Panel of Junior Counsel. She is also one of a small number of barristers appointed to the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Panel Counsel in 2019.
Sasha Notable cases include:
Interpretations of planning permissions
Housing
Rights-based public law
Gypsy & Traveller
Planning and National Security work
Marine, Harbour, and Water law
International marine work
Sasha advises on all aspects of planning and compulsory purchase law and appears regularly in the High Court, Court of Appeal and inquiries and hearings.
Over the past five years, Sasha has developed particular expertise in housing cases particularly High Court challenges and advising on matters relating to a five year housing land supply. She was instructed in one of the first cases to have considered the operation of s.106B of the TCPA 1990. Sasha also has a range of experience in enforcement cases, ranging from enforcement inquiries to obtaining a committal order. Her clients include major institutions, local authorities, central Government, major housebuilders, and small and large NGOs.
Sasha also has a marine practice in planning law, having advised on marine aspects of DCOs, and acts regularly for the MMO in relation to marine licences for planning developments (and other development).
Sasha frequently advises local authorities on planning law claims which have been issued against them. She gives practical advice as to the prospects of success, recognising when a case should be robustly defended and where it is in a council’s best interests to concede swiftly or reach other appropriate settlement, limiting costs. In 2015-2016 for example, a number of cases have been conceded on her advice at an early stage with no order for costs against the Local Authority concerned, and other cases potential claimants have not issued claims on receipt of the defendant’s response to the pre-action protocol letter before claim. Local authorities Sasha has advised since 2015 include Bath and North East Somerset, St Albans, Southwark, Camden, Stroud, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Maldon.
Sasha advises on a wide range of planning matters.
Notable advisory work includes:
Environmental inquiries:
Enforcement Inquiries:
Controversial development:
Heritage Inquiries
Housing inquiries:
Sasha undertakes a variety of public law work which is at the heart of her practice, including central and local government, freedom of information, immigration, education, mental health, social security, prisons, transport as well as planning and environmentally-related public law. She has a long-standing interest in environmental and planning law, and her judicial review practice extends broadly to issues arising in social security law, equality and discrimination law (she is on the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Panel of Counsel).
Sasha has appeared before all levels of Appellate Court and regularly appears in the High Court in judicial review and statutory planning appeal matters, in her own right and when being led by senior counsel. Her clients include government, individuals, property developers, local authorities and NGOs. As well as her long-standing interest in environmental and planning law in this area, she also has a keen interest in education, immigration and social security/welfare rights law and has recently appeared in the Supreme Court in relation to Child Tax Credits. She has experience of all types of school appeals and has been involved in immigration appeals to the courts and a variety of First Tier and Upper Tribunal work (for both Claimants/Appellants and for the Secretary of State). She also undertakes rating work.
Notable advisory work includes:
Other public law, including social security and education and care standards law, ratings and other public law
Sasha appears regularly for a variety of claimants and defendants in other public law matters. Her clients include individuals, small or larger local groups, Parish Councils, local government, central government, the police, companies and devolved administrations or non-departmental public bodies.
Her experience in planning and environmental-related public law work is summarised above, and also includes advisory work on assets of community value (including judicial review proceedings). This also includes information-rights based work, and Sasha has advised on both appeals to the Information Commissioner and appeals under the DPA as well as access to information under the Environmental Information Regulations.
Sasha has a particular interest in equality and the protection of the vulnerable, particularly cases impacting on women and the regulation of when professionals are able to work with children or vulnerable adults. She appears regularly for the Department of Work and Pensions in the Upper Tribunal on social security and child benefit matters, and also accepts instructions from individuals (often on a pro-bono basis) in the same area. Sasha acts regularly for the Department of Work and Pensions and also does a number of pro-bono cases a year for individual claimants.
Recent reported cases of interest in this area include Kuteh v Secretary of State for Education [2014] EWCA Civ 1586 (and successfully defending the decision in the Care Standards Tribunal in 2015 and Upper Tribunal in 2016) and a range of cases for the DWP in the Upper Tribunal, including Pirroni v DWP CE/2966/2014and Taylor and Coombs v SSWP (RNIB intervening) (judgment awaited) and cases involving child support. She also appeared for Mr Humphreys in Humphreys v HMRC [2012] UKSC 18 in the Supreme Court (led by Richard Drabble KC) as to the apportionment of Child Tax Credit for substantial minority carers on subsistence benefits on the basis of discrimination between men and women. Sasha sat on the Neuberger Entry to the Bar Working Party group, set up to try to improve access to the Bar, and is one of small number of barristers appointed to the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Panel Counsel in 2015.
Sasha has acted in a variety of prison law cases, for the Parole Board, and for the Police, including recent High Court challenges to a prison adjudicator’s decision about the meaning of a “fight in prison, the scope of the MoJ’s discretion to release on licence, and challenges to the police’s discretion in relation to maintaining data on its database and issuing harassment notices.
Sasha is highly experienced in judicial review challenges to a variety of immigration matters. The majority of Sasha’s immigration practice is for the Secretary of State, but she also accepts instructions for both individuals/businesses. She is currently appearing in the Court of Appeal Italy returns litigation, led by Lisa Giovannetti KC. She appears in over a hundred oral permission hearings a year in both the High Court/Upper Tribunal and the Court of Appeal. She has significant experience in revocation of sponsorship licences, unlawful detention, fresh claims, Article 8 challenges, point based system challenges and “Third Country” removals (usually Article 2/3 based) and Gurka claims, as well as claims to entitlement to British citizenship.
In the environmental field, Sasha undertakes a range of environmental litigation and advisory work in the domestic and EU law spheres. She has particular experience of issues relating to marine licences, access to environmental information and the Aarhus Convention. Her experience includes environmental impact assessment, strategic environmental assessment, climate change, many aspects of energy projects renewables, pollution prevention and control, waste, and criminal prosecutions under the Environmental Protection Act for the Environment Agency and the Town and Country Planning Act for local authorities.
Her clients include local authorities, major companies, individuals and NGOs, as well as the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Marine Management Organisation, the Department for the Environment (Northern Ireland) and Natural Resources Wales. She has appeared both in her own right on a large number of cases and inquiries and has also been lead in major applications and appeals. In environmental-related planning matters, Sasha undertakes a wide range of advisory and inquiry work. Her experience includes advertising, housing development, planning appeals including on conservation and wildlife, EIA/SEA, listed building and design grounds, as well as on village greens, compulsory purchase and gypsy appeals.
Sasha has a strong personal interest in environmental-related matters in public and planning law, and spent time on a Pegasus scholarship in Australia and New Zealand examining their system of environmental and planning courts. She has a masters’ degree in sustainable development, and was also until recently a Trustee and Director of Forum for the Future and a Trustee and Director of the United Kingdom Environmental Law Association as a member of the Governing Council.
Notable advisory work includes:
Landmark's barristers often work at the intersection of our core practice areas; bringing a wide range of skills, knowledge and experience to bear on a particular dispute or issue facing a client.
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Planning Appeals, Inquiries and Hearings
Immigration
Education
EU Law post-Brexit
Human Rights and Civil Liberties
National Security
Social Security
Water
EU Law post-Brexit
She is outstanding in her diligence and approach. She is accessible, approachable and provides high-quality, client-focused, practical advice."
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29 06 2024
Planning Magazine’s Law Survey 2024 features 37 Landmark barristers
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Planning High Court Challenges 2022 - Session 3 - webinar
Jenny Wigley KC (Joint Head of Chambers), James Maurici KC, Gwion Lewis KC, Ben Fullbrook, and Sasha Blackmore
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Jenny Wigley KC (Joint Head of Chambers), Paul Brown KC, James Maurici KC, Dan Kolinsky KC, Tim Buley KC, David Forsdick KC, Myriam Stacey KC, Aaron Walder, Sasha Blackmore,…
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R. (on the application of Tarian Hafren Severn Shield Cyf) v Marine Management Organisation
Legal Qualifications
Select Academic Qualifications and Awards
Sasha was the Judicial Assistant to the Law Lords in 2007.
Sasha is appointed to the 'Attorney General's A Panel of Junior Counsel' and the 'Equality and Human Rights Commission Panel Counsel'.
Environment, Legal 500, 2024
Planning, Chambers and Partners, 2023
Environment, Chambers and Partners, 2023
Environment, Legal 500, 2023
Planning, Legal 500, 2023
Administrative Law and Human Rights, Legal 500, 2023
Planning, Chambers and Partners, 2022
Environment, Chambers and Partners, 2022
Administrative and Public Law, Legal 500, 2022
Environment, Legal 500, 2022
Planning, Legal 500, 2022
Planning, Chambers and Partners, 2021
Environment, Chambers and Partners, 2022
Administrative and Public Law, Legal 500, 2021
Planning, Legal 500, 2022
Environment, Legal 500, 2022
Planning, Chambers and Partners, 2021
Environment, Chambers and Partners, 2021
Environment, Chambers and Partners, 2020
Planning, Chambers and Partners, 2020
Administrative and Public Law, Legal 500, 2019
Planning, Chambers and Partners, 2019
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