Linear major infrastructure projects: Planning and Real Estate top tips for effective delivery

Burges Salmon’s experienced DCO and NSIP lawyers share their top tips for effective promotion and delivery of clean energy, water and major infrastructure linear projects.

As the UK accelerates towards its 2050 net zero target, the number of clean energy, water and utility major infrastructure linear schemes continues to grow.

Linear schemes such as:

• electric lines;
• pipelines;
• highways;
• water transfers; and
• onshore transmission works associated with offshore wind generating stations,

are specialist major infrastructure projects from a legal point of view. 

Due to their size and scale, many of these schemes fall with the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (“NSIPs”) regime, requiring a Development Consent Order (“DCO”) from the Secretary of State.

Promoting an NSIP is no simple endeavour. Such schemes often span multiple geographic regions, administrative areas and communities requiring co-ordination across hundreds of stakeholders. Legal, real estate and planning issues must be managed effectively alongside programme pressures and commercial realities. The success of linear infrastructure projects is rarely determined at examination — it is determined much earlier by how effectively stakeholders, land strategy and delivery risks are aligned from the outset. Legal advisers on NSIPs have a large role to play in that respect.

At Burges Salmon, we are experts in the legal and practical aspects of delivering on these schemes; it’s our passion and our focus. Our Planning and Real Estate teams combine a wealth of experience in linear projects and ensure comprehensive support and guidance throughout a project is delivered on a collaborative and forward planning basis.

Here are our top tips for effective delivery on these schemes:

1. Engage Early – Linear infrastructure projects are more likely to interact with a wider number of people, organisations and authorities than single-sited infrastructure. It is therefore even more important that a project establishes where key interactions with other stakeholders will be and parties actively engage with one another at the earliest opportunity to seek to agree matters or establish differences. Projects can help to facilitate this through the provision of information on the project early on in the DCO process (and doing so is likely to lead to a more streamlined examination process).
   
   Additional consideration should be given to who will engage with (and track such engagement) stakeholders – an “Agricultural Liaison Officer” could facilitate smoother communications with agricultural stakeholders for example. 
   
   Engaging in the right way will help to reach early agreement on terms as to how the project will be delivered and can reduce objections and representations made through the course of examination (providing myriad benefits).

2. Engage with Statutory Undertakers – The length of linear infrastructure projects means that they are likely to have a greater interaction with the apparatus or infrastructure of statutory undertakers or other organisations that may seek protective provisions in relation to exercise of compulsory purchase powers in the DCO. Early engagement can be challenging given that details of the exact interactions between the project and existing apparatus or infrastructure can be unknown, but reaching early agreement (and again understanding key interactions) can have a significant benefit in reducing the number of issues (and indeed the number of parties who have them) which remain unresolved at examination. Having a well-thought-out stakeholder plan or strategy at the outset can really help with this.
3. Accessible Information – Projects should provide plans, visualisations and illustrations to help others understand the project. Consider making project websites as accessible as possible – could a landowner add in their address to see how they are impacted? Stress test the information… it may be that you need additional plans or drawings used purely to aid understanding or to address queries raised in relation to the project, as well as plans that are required by law? The Planning Inspectorate advice note on preparing for NSIP applications (which can be found here) gives several useful examples of helpful additional illustrative material, such as the schematic routing map used for the HyNet Carbon Dioxide Pipeline DCO or the schematic section drawing used for the Sheringham and Dudgeon Extension Offshore Wind Farm Extension Project DCO (both projects on which Burges Salmon continue to advise).
4. Build in flexibility – Given large geographic extents involved and the possibility that construction techniques remain unknown at application, linear infrastructure projects will often need to secure the flexibility to micro-site infrastructure after the DCO is confirmed. Applicants should carefully consider any limits of deviation that may be required for their projects, both horizontal and vertical, and should be prepared to justify this. Limits of deviation do not need to be the same across the entire length of a project and may increase in width or height if required for the project (or indeed decrease in width or height) to avoid significant adverse effects or to micro-site around constraints.
   
   It is common practice to start with a much wider corridor and to refine and narrow this as scheme design progress and more information is gathered about the land and views are sought from interested parties. Moreover, given the scale of linear infrastructure projects, the potential for technological advancement between a project’s inception and construction, and the various options for commercial delivery, applicants may wish to structure the DCO in a way that allows the project more than one option as to routing or the infrastructure to be used. Projects may also wish to retain flexibility by leaving details of the infrastructure open until detailed design stage.
   
   The Environmental Statement that accompanies the DCO application should assess the worst-case scenario using the “Rochdale Envelope” approach (PINS guidance on which can be found here) where details of routing or construction methodology have not yet been finalised or flexibility is sought for the project and the Applicant should fully assess each option.
5. Advance real estate inputs at an early stage – Whilst initial legal workstreams are planning-led, behind every DCO sit multiple real estate workstreams involving many land interests, competing priorities and delicate negotiations with different categories of landowners. It is important to ensure that advisers delivering on voluntary agreements have full oversight as to the required flexibility required under the DCO and key project milestones so they can deliver that same flexibility on a voluntary agreement basis. The timing of land acquisition, exercise of rights and management of negotiations on voluntary agreement and land access arrangements will end up as a significant influence on timing and actual delivery of the relevant scheme. Early inputs on those do assist and voluntary agreements can provide for different methods of permanent interests and rights over and above what may be available solely through exercise of DCO powers). 
6. Approach delivery of voluntary agreements strategically – Sometimes complexities in voluntary agreement rollout arise simply by virtue of the volume of transactions an Applicant anticipates dealing with, but it extends to dealings with special categories of landowners, different interests and title issues encountered in due diligence. Early real estate inputs not only support the planning, surveying, stakeholder engagement, engineering and other advisory teams in developing effective strategy for managing preferred project outcomes, but also helps avoid potential pitfalls before they arise and (and reduce issues on later financing and investment workstreams). 
7. Consider Neighbouring DCOs – Linear infrastructure projects, by their nature, are more likely to interact with other DCOs than single-sited infrastructure. It can therefore be helpful to provide a plan demonstrating any anticipated interactions between the order limits and those of another DCO, as well as an explanation of how the powers sought might affect existing DCOs. In these circumstances, it may be necessary to include protective provisions to benefit the other DCO project. Projects could also look for opportunities to co-operate with other DCOs to reduce significance adverse effects. For example, applicants may make use of shared arrangements, such as for shared access or joint working or may seek to co-ordinate construction timetables with other projects. A good example of this working in practice is the sharing of onshore cable corridors and substation sites by different offshore wind farms in order to seek to minimise impacts on the environment and local communities. 
8. Consider and accommodate deviations – Two of the key challenges for linear infrastructure projects is to demonstrate that proper consideration has been given to alternatives (such as the use of underground cables rather than overhead lines) and optioneering (such as the route taken by the linear infrastructure). These issues must be carefully considered with any conclusions clearly justified. This can be one of the most challenging aspects to linear projects where numerous route options can exist. Applicants should keep clear evidence of the consideration undertaken and the process followed to reach the proposed project and its routing. In our experience, keeping a proper record of decisions taken, with clear reasons for these, during site selection will pay dividends when it comes to preparing the application and justifying the route chosen. Early consideration of potential deviations can save costs during the examination stage and transparency with stakeholders can help to ensure their buy-in.
9. Put in the prep work on voluntary agreements – Reaching terms on voluntary agreements with affected parties at an early stage brings a host of benefits (and will help demonstrate to examiners that powers of compulsion which will be available under the DCO once made are genuinely seen by the Applicant as a “last resort”). Voluntary agreements which reflect the detailed and market standard terms agreed between parties involved assist to reduce the scope (and cost) of negotiations when those agreements are issued (and therefore reach exchange within shorter timeframes). Careful consideration given to how and when specific agreements should be advanced as part of the overall rollout strategy of voluntary agreements can lead to efficiencies in management of subsequent negotiations and cost control. 
10. Biodiversity net gain – Delivering biodiversity net gain (“BNG”) for linear schemes can be particularly challenging, where routes span across a number of local authority areas and where there are a lot of impacts that are only temporary in nature. The recent consultation on BNG for NSIPs in England ran until 24 July 2025 and received a large number of responses (the outcome of which should be available here in due course).
11. Timed to perfection – The scale of linear infrastructure projects can result in long construction processes that need to be carried out in phases. Thinking about this in relation to the discharge of DCO requirements and conditions is therefore important to try and ensure that the right information will be available at the right time to ensure there are no delays to delivery of the scheme.

At Burges Salmon, our team have a wealth of experience advising on such schemes and work closely and collaboratively with Applicants from the outset (and throughout these projects) to ensure a seamless experience. We have:

• A core multi-disciplinary senior team of expert lawyers with a wealth of experience in planning, compulsory purchase, commercial real estate, development, water and energy who now focus solely on linear projects (and collectively have advised on over 50 NSIPs);
• A well-resourced team of legal project managers and juniors supporting senior leads in delivering planning and real estate workstreams;
• A Linear Projects Working Group that meets regularly to share knowledge, insights and experiences on delivery of our projects; and
• An Innovations team driving automation and efficient and effective working practices.

Burges Salmon are experienced DCO and NSIP lawyers, promoting a range of linear major infrastructure projects, including the pipeline project recently awarded the National Infrastructure Planning Association’s “project of the year” award for 2024. The subsequent 2025 awards also saw Olivia Heininger winning the 2025 Early Years Practitioner Award.

If you have any questions or would otherwise like to discuss any issue raised in this article, please contact Jen Ashwell or Alex Minhinick (Planning) or Will Woodall or Alix McKenzie-Wain (Real Estate).

(Credit also to Will Noble and Natalie Cooke for their input into above.)