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Podcast episode 156: The #Planoraks Awards 2025

Episode 156 of 50 Shades of Planning is available now via this link (or from Apple and Spotify).

This is the second of my seasonal offerings that serve as a review of 2025 and I am very pleased to say that one of the most entertaining, informed and erudite planning commentators, if not the most entertaining, informed and erudite of the planning commentators, Zack Simons, kindly bestowed upon me again the honour of announcing his Planoraks Awards on the podcast.

I met Zack at Soho Radio Studios and he handed me six golden envelopes which you will hear me open during our conversation.

They contain the winners of the following awards:
  • Policy of the Year;
  • Missed Opportunity of the Year;
  • Catastrophe of the Year;
  • Delay of the Year;
  • Stat of the Year; and
  • Consent of the Year.
There were, given that we recorded a few days after the revised draft of the NPPF had been published, a few late entries into some of those categories...

If you are reading this you will have read, I am sure, Zack’s on the whistle analysis of the new NPPF and it is worth reflecting that that will have been written late into the night in Zack’s own time. The profession is immeasurably richer because commentators like Zack take time that they could otherwise be charging for or giving to other people to tell us what they think we need to know about the issues of the day. 



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