David Watkins > Linklaters LLP > London, England > Lawyer Profile

David Watkins

020 7456 4852 david.watkins@linklaters.com View profile View profile

Work Department

Planning

Position

As head of the firm’s planning team, David has significant experience in all aspects of town planning and development activity. His experience includes negotiating planning permissions for large and complex projects, co-ordinating major public inquiries, and obtaining all planning consents, as well as having in-depth knowledge of compulsory purchase orders, road closure orders and statutory agreements. He is well known for his planning successes involving mixed use developments.

Since the early 1990’s David has been heavily involved in advising clients on securing permission to build a series of tall buildings in the City of London, which has changed the face of the City and led to the development of tall buildings in other areas of London.

Work highlights

David has led on a wide range of the market’s most prominent planning applications. These include advising:

• Aroland Holdings on the development of a 300m tall building to be known as 1 Undershaft on the site of the Aviva Tower, which, when completed, will be the City of London’s tallest skyscraper
• Bloomberg on the redevelopment of the three-acre site comprising Bucklersbury House, Walbrook, London to create two new buildings
• British Land on the redevelopment of 122 Leadenhall Street as a 48-storey, 220m tower in the City of London
• British Museum on the redevelopment of the northwest corner of the Museum’s Grade I listed Bloomsbury Estate to provide a World Conservation and Exhibition Centre comprising five interconnected glazed pavilions
• Great Portland Estates on the redevelopment of Rathbone Place, a 2.5-acre site adjacent to Oxford Street to create a new mixed use development
• Grosvenor and Native Land as joint developers of Neo Bankside (next to Tate Modern Gallery) involving the construction of five new buildings with mixed retail/residential use

Career

Partner, Linklaters, 1997 to date

Memberships

David wrote the chapter on planning in the Guide to Specification, published by the British Council for Offices, 2014.

Education

David studied law at Edinburgh University.