Podcast episode 113: The #Planaraks Awards 2023.

The latest 50 Shades of Planning episode is available here, or via Apple and Spotify.

This is the third of the festive 50 Shades triumvirate looking back at 2023. The first two some past contributors and I did by way of the 50 Shades Festive Christmas Quizzes. This third one sees the return of Zack Simons’ Planaraks Awards, which he again kindly agreed to reveal exclusively on the podcast.

In a conversation that we recorded on Planning Reform Day, just as Michael Gove had given a speech entitled ‘Falling back in love with the future’ and just before the NPPF emerged, we canter through some of the high points and low points of the year just gone (mostly low points) and Zack confers awards for, amongst other things, 'The Most Futile Reform of the Year', 'The Most Hopeless Reform of the Year' and 'The Worst Policy of the Year'. Positivity does not abound, but we do try to generate some.

Along the way we touch on many of the things that regular readers of Zack’s Planaraks Blog would expect us to, from amending consents, nutrient neutrality, application fees, the LURA, Green Belt and strategic planning.

I give another plug at the end of the episode for Oscar Easton’s Yorkshire 3 Peaks Challenge next month. Oscar, son of friend of the podcast Jonathan Easton, is seeking sponsorship for a very good cause, a link to which you will find in the description. Please do support Team Easton if you can.

https://www.justgiving.com/page/oscar-easton-1702480570488

Comments

Life on the Front Line

I like it when people get in touch with me to suggest topics for 50 Shades of Planning Podcast episodes because, firstly, it means that people are listening to it and also, and most importantly, it means I do not have to come up with ideas myself. I found this message from a team leader at a local authority striking and sobering though. In a subsequent conversation the person that sent this confided in me that their team is virtually in crisis mode. It is probably fair to say that the planning system is in crisis, but then it is also probably fair to say that the planning system is always in crisis… There is, of course, the issue of resources. Whilst according to a Planning magazine survey slightly more LPAs are predicting growth in planning department budgets (25%) rather than a contraction (22%), this has to be seen in the context of a 38% real-terms fall in net current expenditure on planning functions between 2010–11 and 2017–18. Beyond resources though the current crisis feels m...

Labour's planning proposals

There is a sense among some that Labour is 'keeping it's powder dry' on housing and planning so as 'not to scare the horses', but actually, when you compile everything that has been put into the public domain, the future direction of policy is relatively easy to discern. This is that compilation, which takes in a couple of press releases (and, importantly, the 'notes to editors'), a policy paper, an extract from a Westminster Hall debate, and Sunday Times and FT articles. ‘How’, not ‘if’: Labour will jump start planning to build 1.5 million homes and save the dream of homeownership Oct 10, 2023 https://labour.org.uk/updates/press-releases/how-not-if-labour-will-jump-start-planning-to-build-1-5-million-homes-and-save-the-dream-of-homeownership/ Labour’s Housing Recovery Plan Upon entering office, the Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Angela Rayner, will publish a Written Ministerial Statement and write to...

On modernising planning committees

If you are involved they are terrible, but if you are just observing they are terrific. That is how, way back in the day..., I introduced Episode 7 of 50 Shades of Planning. If you are reading a town planning-based blog then the chances are that you will have participated in a planning committee previously, will know immediately what I mean, and will have your own tales to tell. If you are not a planner though or have not been subject to this unique ‘cauldron of human emotion’ (which is what I called Episode 7) then you should watch Wokingham ’s planning committee take over an hour to debate the merits of a proposed communications kiosk in Woodley recently (I only knew about this because I saw somebody last week who had to sit through this discussion whilst waiting for the next application, but you could probably pick any planning committee at any council on any day of the year and see something similar). Yes, of course, not all planning committees are akin to putting the fate of a tr...

The 50 Shades of Planning Blog

Search This Blog