Planning Lawyer

Job Title: Planning Lawyer
Starting Salary: £53,806 plus £5,398 market enhancement rising to £59,497 plus £5,424 market enhancement plus a one-off Welcome Payment of £4000
Hours: 37
Location: Stevenage with hybrid working opportunities
Contract Type: Permanent
Directorate: Resources

About the team

With more than 100 colleagues in the team Herts Legal is one of the largest and most successful legal teams in local government and offers a complete legal service to clients across the County Council, District Councils and other public sector bodies.

Our lawyers are crucial to the County Council's continued success. We have high standards for our services and we are pleased to be recognised as a Centre of Excellence by the Law Society's Lexcel quality standard assessor.

Herts Legal provides a fantastic opportunity for ambitious, passionate and organised Lawyers who want to join a supportive and flourishing public sector legal team.

We offer flexible hybrid working and have recently moved to newly refurbished modern offices in Stevenage.

About the role

We are looking to grow our successful Environment Law Team, which is central to the broad portfolio of legal work connected with Hertfordshire’s planning, highways, environmental and rights of way work and supporting the wider growth and development agenda for the County and its Districts.

The Environment Law Team provides legal advice and assistance to client departments and District Councils on planning, highways and environmental matters, and is also involved in supporting the Council’s major infrastructure and community facing projects.

The role will be client facing providing high quality legal services to Council officers and Members, committees, and other council bodies.

Role Responsibilities

• Manage your own case load of routine and more complex matters
• Provide quality practical advice and support to clients on planning and highways cases
• Advice to and occasional attendance at Planning Committees
• Participate in training courses and seminars for Members, officers and others.
• Ensure that the decisions made by client departments are lawful, accord with County Council policy and achieve their aims and objectives efficiently
• Maintain an awareness of all relevant legislation, policy and regulations, investigate and advise on implications of changing legislation, case law and codes of practice and policy and provide training where necessary
• Make recommendations to the Team lead Specialist Lawyer and Assistant Chief Legal Officer on improvements in practice and procedure in the Team to ensure that the Team retains pre-eminence in its practice area.

About you

Essential

• A qualified solicitor, barrister or legal executive
• Demonstrable knowledge and experience of planning and highways law, including s106 agreements, highway agreements, and rights of way
• Excellent drafting skills and the ability to negotiate documents and agreements.
• Experience in managing and prioritise workloads to achieve client outcomes to timescale and within budget
• Experience in client care skills and the ability to develop relationships with client officers
• Experience of working collaboratively with colleagues at all levels
• Self-sufficient and experienced in the production of all documents and correspondence
• Proven attention to detail and a pragmatic, flexible and commercial approach to problem solving

Desirable

• Knowledge of the broad spectrum of environmental work
• Experience of working in a local authority legal environment and an understanding of the issues facing local authorities, their legal service departments and lawyers

We welcome applications from candidates who currently reside in the UK with established proof of right to work documentation. We are not able to offer sponsorship at this time for this role.

This job role is within the Corporate Services, level CORP13 job profile. Please locate this via:

Job profiles - Corporate services

To hear more about this opportunity please contact Stephen.Dorrian@hertfordshire.gov.uk for an informal discussion about the role.

Proposed Interview Date: Thursday 26th February 2026

Benefits of working for us

How to apply

As part of your application, please upload your most recent CV. Ensure your CV is up to date with your employment history (including any employment gaps), and including any training/qualifications. We encourage you to include examples of where you have demonstrated the requirements/criteria in the advert / job profile to allow the panel to fully recognise your skills and abilities. You will have the opportunity to include a short covering paragraph within your application to give us a little more information about your skills, knowledge, and experiences.

Additional information

Disability Confident
We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and guarantee an interview to anyone disclosing a disability whose application meets the minimum criteria for the post.

English Fluency
The ability to converse at ease with members of the public and provide advice in accurate spoken English is essential for the post (for those whose language is a signed language the provision of a sign language interpreter who speaks English to the necessary standard of fluency will be required). Further information about the legal requirement can be found here.