Carter Jonas have recently provided Development Consent Order (DCO) representation advice to clients impacted by the A12 Chelmsford to A120 Widening Scheme promoted by National Highways. 

The Scheme includes road widening between Junction 19 Boreham interchange to Junction 25 Marks Tey interchange and aims to reduce congestion by increasing the road capacity.  

The Scheme was accepted in August 2022 as an application for a DCO, and at the time of writing, the application is currently within the ‘pre-examination’ stage of the process. The pre-examination stage provides parties who register as an interested party to make a relevant representation. Relevant representations allow people’s views on a scheme to be submitted on an application.  

We advised our clients impacted by the Scheme of the benefits of submitting a relevant representation to the planning inspectorate emphasising the strict statutory timescales. Our advice evaluated the benefits of written representations, which are often a useful mechanism to express a clients position. The outcome of a representation could influence the project addressing an impacted interests concerns.  

Within this scheme, we drafted and submitted relevant representations on behalf of our clients, which provided:  

• The proposal for land take 
• A summary of proposed works and requests for further information on temporary land use and working hours to understand disruption to our clients and their properties.  
• Comments on efforts to acquire by agreement  
• Impacts as a result of the scheme 
• A solution to address identified impacts. In this case, this included potential mitigation measures which would help protect from the impacts of construction noise, vibration, light and dust as well as noise and light from the completed scheme, seeking to be removed from the Scheme or suggesting acquisition of the whole on the basis of material hardship. 

We provided advice in alignment with our instructions and look forward to a continued working relationship with our clients impacted by the Scheme, in order to facilitate our clients’ objectives.