Three experienced planners set up new venture
Three experienced chartered planning consultants have set up a new business, MWT Planning Ltd, an independent planning consultancy with offices in Lancashire and Cumbria.
MWT co-founders Christie McDonald, Claire Wilkinson and Harry Tonge have a combined sixty years of experience in both the public and private sectors between them.
The MWT Planning team covers all planning specialisms and can deal with sites throughout the UK.
Over the past 18 years, Christie has been working in the private sector and has grown his client base and reputation hugely.
Whilst his specialism lies in obtaining planning permissions for residential development on tricky Green Belt sites, he has clients throughout the property industry’s different sectors.
For example, he recently acted for Towngate PLC on a successful application for a major commercial scheme in Salford which is now occupied and in operation, to the client’s great satisfaction.
Claire has 20 years’ experience within the planning profession, which includes considerable time spent both within the public and private sectors. Her experience is varied ranging from Green Belt and rural matters through to large commercial and residential developments.
Most recently she has had a flurry of glamping-associated work having secured permission for her client Derry Green and The Secret Garden glamping. Other clients include Notre Homes, Huntapac and Southport Land and Property. Claire provides honest, straight-talking advice from the outset and loves nothing more than helping people to secure planning permission.
Harry has been based in Kendal for more than a decade and has built up considerable experience dealing with complex planning matters in sensitive locations, such as the Lake District.
In recent years he has secured consent for a number of housing schemes, hotel extensions and holiday park developments, and was also the planning agent for the application for the replacement of Pooley Bridge. Notable current clients include Barratt Homes, Holgates Holiday Parks, Lake District Audi and English Lakes Hotels.
Christie McDonald explains the background to setting up this exciting new venture and the company’s ethos,
“We have been colleagues for a number of years and, after working together so well over those years, it felt like the next logical step was to set up business together. The primary aim of MWT Planning is to provide planning advice and services to developers, landowners and private individuals across all sectors of development to secure residential, commercial, recreation, leisure and mixed-use developments anywhere in the UK.
The three of us are members of the Royal Town Planning Institute and pride ourselves on approaching each job with an open mind and tailoring our advice on a case-by-case, site-by-site basis, to meet the client’s brief.
“No matter the scale of the project, if you have a site that you have development aspirations for, do not hesitate to get in touch.”
