The 50 Shades of Planning Blog

Episode 177 of the podcast is available now via this link or from the usual podcast platforms. This is another episode in the Hitting the High Notes series, which, if you have not listened to one before, is town planning’s equivalent, nee rip off, of Desert Island Discs. During these episodes I chat to preeminent figures in the planning and property sectors about the planning permissions or projects that have helped to shape them as professionals and, so that we can get to know people a little better personally, for every permission, project or stage of their career, I also ask my guests for a piece of music that reminds them of that period. Unlike Desert Island Discs you will not, I am afraid, hear any of that music during the episode because using commercially-licensed music without the copyright holders permission or a very expensive PRS licensing agreement could land me in hot water, so, when you have finished listening, you will have to make do with YouTube videos and a Spotify p...

Episode 176 of the podcast is available now via this link or from the usual podcast platforms. A couple of months ago I saw that Shaun Knights at Preston City Council and national vice chair of the Young Planning Officers Society (POS), had posted on LinkedIn encouraging nominations for POS’ ‘Emerging Planner Award’ (EPA). “I’ve already seen some genuinely impressive submissions that show the amazing day‑to‑day work young planners are doing and the fresh ideas they’re bringing into LPAs”, Shaun wrote. “Hmm”, thought I. "I am interested in the amazing day‑to‑day work that young planners are doing and the fresh ideas they’re bringing into LPAs, and I bet that 50 Shades listeners would be too..." I sent Shaun a message asking if he and his Young POS colleagues would be up for making an episode together with some of the planners that were subsequently short-listed for the award and he was, and some of them were, and so they put together what you are will hear ahead of and after...

Episode 175 of the podcast  is available now via this link below or from the usual podcast platforms. The role of local councillors in the planning system has been a familiar topic of conversation on the podcast in the context of, for example, overturning officer recommendations and the case for a national scheme of delegation. There is less talk about the role of MPs in the planning system, which is something that friend of the podcast Andrew Taylor wanted to remedy. This then is the second of what he and I hope will be five episodes exploring the role of a member of a parliament by way of conversations that Andrew records with representatives from the now five major parties. This time, the Liberal Democrats, and a conversation recorded with Vikki Slade and Sarah Gibson at Soho Radio Studios in April 2026. Andrew, regular listeners will know, is Group Planning and Sustainability Director at Vistry. Vikki represents Mid Dorset and North Poole and is a former group leader on B...

Episode 174 of 50 Shades of Planning is available now via this link or from the usual podcast platforms. I was in London recently and whilst there caught up with friends of the podcast Hana Loftus , Mike Kiely , Nicola Gooch , Simon Ricketts and Andrew Taylor . Hana is a Director at HAT Projects; Mike is a former Chief Planner and now an independent planning consultant working mainly in the public sector; Nicola is a Partner at Birketts; Simon is a Partner at Town Legal and Andrew is Group Planning & Sustainability Director at Vistry. In a conversation recorded at Soho Radio Studios  we chatted about some of the hot topics exercising the planning profession at the minute. We talked about the legal challenge by some London boroughs to the Mayor’s package of time-limited emergency measures to support housebuilding. We talked about planning committees, the national scheme of delegation, statutory chief planners, the designation of LPAs for poor performance, the Nature Restoratio...

Some of you might know that since January 2024 I have been issue a periodic newsletter. I was conscious that I had not issued one for a while, but did not realise until logging in to Mailchimp at the weekend that it had been three months since the last one. Evidently I am struggling to find the time so have decided to call time on that. To be fair, when I had been issuing them of late, they had become little more than summaries of the podcast descriptions so they were not really what I had in mind when I started them. If you are subscribed to this blog and to the 50 Shades podcast then you will not miss anything I publish on these platforms. One of the aims of the newsletter was to bring people together and, as well as sharing news of the blog and podcast, I hoped that it could act as a noticeboard for anybody wanting to share things of possible interest. I think that I can achieve those aims, and perhaps even achieve more, with a WhatsApp Community . The spur was being asked on Lin...

Episode 173 of the podcast is available now via this link or from the usual podcast platforms. This is the fourth of a series of episodes being led by the oldest friend of the podcast, Paul Smith . Paul, regular listeners will know, is the Managing Director at the Strategic Land Group and a Housing Today columnist. Paul put it to me a little while ago that debates about the planning system in England tend, for the most part, to focus solely on the planning system in England. We very seldom look to other countries for inspiration and ideas. Paul wanted to remedy that and so in this series he is chatting with planning professionals and academics from a number of countries to find out what works well there, what works less well, and what can we learn. In this episode Paul explores the planning system in New Zealand with Stuart Donovan . Stuart is an economist and Senior Fellow with Motu Research, an independent Wellington-based economics and public policy institute. In a conversation rec...