Matthew Spry

Matthew specialises in residential development, including strategic land promotion through local plans, and securing permission for urban extensions, new settlements, and related infrastructure. He has also led on due diligence for several M&A transactions in the house building and land promotion sector, and advised on a diverse range of economics, regeneration, and airport projects. His team’s research and policy work is widely recognised: its February 2023 impact assessment of the Government’s changes to national planning policy was debated in parliament, and several reports on build out, planning permissions and land banks informed the Competition and Markets Authority study on housebuilding. He supported the Expert Panel on the Government’s London Plan Review published in February 2024, and is leading the Lichfields team advising DLUHC on multiple strands of its digital planning reform programme. In 2016 he was an advisor on the Secretary of State’s Local Plans Expert Group.

Matthew has worked for Lichfields for 22 years; and leads its 115-strong London office. Lichfields is the UK’s pre-eminent planning and development consultancy – independent, employee-owned and with over 250 people operating out of nine offices. Matthew is also a non-Executive Director of Repton Property Developments – the housing development company established by Norfolk County Council to develop its surplus land for housing – and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He has written on planning matters in the Times and in 2023 contributed to the Fabian Society’s pamphlet Homes for Britain: Planning for Growth.