Who's Who Legal: Hospitality 2024 - Sarah Fitzpatrick

Sarah Fitzpatrick, Head of Planning, London, has once again been ranked globally as one of the top lawyers in the Who’s Who Legal (WWL) Hospitality 2024 edition published in August.

With over 25 years’ experience, Sarah has secured planning permission for major sports stadia, hotels, bars, and restaurants, including rooftop venues, cinemas, visitor attractions, and other sports and leisure facilities. She always strives to secure the optimum consents for her clients that maximise value and are attractive to prospective funders, developers, and occupiers. Sarah is an expert at obtaining consents that have the right amount of flexibility to accommodate changing consumer trends and that allow hospitality facilities to remain on trend, or even change to new uses without the need to obtain fresh or varied consents.

Examples of hospitality developments that Sarah has acted on include: The Shard in London, which includes a hotel, bars, and restaurants, and a top-floor visitor attraction; the Olympic Park in London, which includes a range of sports venues as well as complementary hospitality and leisure facilities; the main stand redevelopment for an English Premiership Football Club, including corporate hospitality, fan facilities, and retail outlets, as well as securing consent for the Club’s new training Academy; a new 6-screen cinema development with complementary bars, restaurants, and retailing; and a boutique hotel and restaurant in Oxfordshire that involved the repurposing of a listed building.

Most recently, Sarah and the Planning team have been responsible for securing planning permission for an 872 bed hotel, office refurbishment and extension in Lambeth.

Sarah is also recognised as a “leading individual” in The Legal 500 for planning. She also publishes regularly with articles published by LexisNexis and The Planner.

WWL has previously stated that Sarah Fitzpatrick is lauded for her “cool head and strong leadership ability,” as well as “her practical approach to often complex legal problems” in securing valuable planning consents for her clients.