New senior planner for Vail Williams’ south coast region

Steve Pattie of property consultancy Vail Williams in Hampshire

Expanding property consultancy Vail Williams has bolstered its planning team with a strategic new hire as business demand continues to grow.

Steven Pattie has been appointed to the firm’s south coast region as a senior planner and works out of the Portsmouth and Southampton offices.

He joined Vail Williams from Chichester District Council and previously worked as a planning consultant for clients across the south coast.

With 17 years’ experience in both the public and private sectors as a chartered town planner, Steven’s key service area is town and country planning advice.

He started his career as a planning consultant in the West Midlands working as a lead consultant coordinating multi-disciplinary teams on a range of major and complex planning applications.

His experience includes mixed-use, commercial, residential, industrial, renewable energy and aviation development projects and he specialises in providing planning advice and managing clients’ portfolios of sites through the planning processes.

This includes promoting land for development through the local plan, neighbourhood plans, Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) and Strategic Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment (SHELAA) processes as well as managing the submissions of pre-applications, planning applications and appeal processes.

He said: “I was seeking a new challenge and the chance to work for such a forward thinking and welcoming firm as Vail Williams was simply too good to miss. My goal is to continue to offer the second-to-none client service for which Vail Williams is renowned.

“I strive to achieve aims and objectives for sites, on behalf of clients, with a firm focus on overall strategies. To achieve this, I pay close attention to knowing and understanding the details, which can often lead to delivering bespoke solutions.

“For example, through identification of site-specific constraints and engaging those matters in a positive way, I help steer proposals, layouts, designs and detailed solutions, by problem solving on a site-by-site basis.”

David Ramsay, lead partner for planning at Vail Williams, said: “Steven is an experienced operator whose key skills and specialisms are essential as we continue to grow the firm’s planning operations on the south coast and beyond.

“He is a great planning and development all-rounder whose detailed knowledge and in-depth experience will be invaluable. He is also a great team player who has fitted in seamlessly and is able to offer advice and encouragement to colleagues.

Vail Williams’ team of experienced planning consultants works with landowners, developers and their teams across the UK, to advise on the most appropriate planning strategy to achieve planning consent and deliver on project objectives.

The firm’s full-service property advice includes commercial agency, investment and development advice, building consultancy, property valuation, planning, lease advisory, property asset management, business rates and occupier consultancy.