Neil Bucknell

Neil is a Partner in the National Commercial Property and Land Development groups, and heads the Property department in the Guildford office.

Neil has extensive experience in land acquisition and non contentious planning.  His client base is principally made up of residential and commercial developers who vary in size from small local companies to major national listed housebuilders.  He also acts for landowners and institutions.

Neil undertakes the following types of work on behalf of his clients: land acquisition; land options; planning agreements; land disposal between developers and to registered social landlords; negotiating planning agreements with local planning authorities and highway authorities etc; regeneration development agreements between developers and local authorities or other public bodies; and ancillary advice regarding planning and other matters affecting the ownership and use of land.  In the past he has also dealt with the disposal of land by insolvency practitioners and banks as mortgagees and advising regarding the same, including “warehousing” of assets by lending institutions to maximise returns. 

Neil joined Laytons as a partner in 1997.  He qualified in 1980 at Clark & Son in Reading, spent 4 years with Wilde Sapte in London before moving to Pitmans of Reading in 1986 where he was made partner in 1987. 

Personal

Neil is a keen birdwatcher who enjoys walking and the countryside.  He also has a passion for classical music, motoring and taking part in quizzes! 

Neil has twice been Chairman of the Reading (now Berkshire) Ornithological Club and is the joint author of “The Birds of Berkshire” (published in 1996), the first complete account of the bird life of the modern county.  He is now one of a group organising a survey to map the distribution of the county’s birds with the aim of producing a second edition of the book in due course.  From 1997 to 2006 he was the Honorary Secretary of the British Ornithologists’ Union, and in 2008 was appointed to the Council of the British Trust for Ornithology.

Neil also has a general interest in promoting education.  From 1993 he was on the board of the Reading College of Art & Technology, which in 2003 was merged into Thames Valley University, and he remained on the board of the combined institution until 2006.

Legal 500 Quotes

“Laytons counts Taylor Wimpey and Barratt Group as major clients. The group continued to work on major projects, such as the Cambourne New Town project, and secured 147 new instructions. Charles Hodder and Neil Bucknell are recommended.”