Leon is an Associate in the London Real Estate team advising on planning and real estate dispute resolution.
Leon has a unique practice spanning matters across the firm's specialist planning and real estate dispute resolution teams.
Leon acts on a range of contentious and non-contentious planning law, with particular experience in the preparation and examination of large-scale energy and infrastructure DCO applications and the subsequent defence of granted DCOs and post-commencement approvals against legal challenge.
He advises on judicial reviews and planning statutory reviews (on both claimant and defendant side), compulsory acquisition and necessary wayleaves, Habitats Regulations issues and planning reform. He also has a growing practice advising on the Environmental Information Regulations, including taking appeals to the First-tier and Upper Tribunals.
Leon also advises on all areas of property litigation and alternative dispute resolution, including contentious landlord and tenant work such as break clause disputes, tenant arrears/insolvency, service charge disputes, terminal dilapidations, forfeiture and nuisance. He has experience with claims in the County Court and High Court, including possession claims against trespassers, lease renewals under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 and High Court injunctions against persons unknown.
Experience & capabilities
Selected matters
- Gatwick Airport in relation to its successful DCO application for the Northern Runway Project, to bring the airport's existing Northern Runway into routine use and to reconfigure various aspects of the airport's infrastructure
- Sizewell C in successfully defending at High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court permission stage a judicial review brought against the grant of the Sizewell C new nuclear power station DCO by a local objector group, as well as in relation to pre- and post-commencement implementation advice
- AQUIND in relation to the redetermination of its DCO application for a proposed electricity interconnector between the UK and France, including on the bespoke closed material process established to facilitate consideration of representations from the Ministry of Defence and on interface arrangements with offshore wind development
- ElecLink in relation to the operation of, and land rights for, its electricity interconnector between the UK and France
- Low Carbon on the examination of the Beacon Fen Energy Park DCO application for a 400MW solar farm with battery storage
- bp in relation to its proposals for a carbon capture and storage facility in the North Sea (the Northern Endurance Partnership project), including representations in the Hornsea 4 DCO examination and related advice
- Uniper Energy on its successful application for a High Court injunction against persons entering and carrying out unauthorised activity at the former Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station
- Gatwick Airport on the successful renewal of its High Court injunction against persons unknown carrying out disruptive protest activity on the airport site
Sectors
Background
Leon has an MA in Law from Cambridge University (Jesus College) and qualified as a solicitor in 2022. As a trainee, he did a six-month secondment in the Legal (Disputes) Team at IBM.
He is a member of the National Infrastructure Planning Association and Property Litigation Association.
Leon qualified as a solicitor advocate with higher rights of audience in 2026.
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