Housing architect HTA has set up a planning division.

Brian Waters, the newly elected president of the Association of Consulting Architects (ACA), will head the division as director. His focus will be on developing a planning service for clients in the housing sector.

Bernard Hunt, chairman of HTA, said: “HTA Planning will focus on consents and appeals and will work alongside our designers and clients. It will help us to ensure that, while we are designing, there will be a clear strategy to help us get consent.”

He added: “We will now recruit a head of planning to report to Brian. The new division will take some building up but we expect it to grow substantially in the next five years.”

Waters was elected president of the ACA in succession to Paul Davis on Tuesday evening.

HTA also has a landscape design division and a graphic design division.