The 50 Shades of Planning Blog

Episode 172 of 50  Shades of Planning is available now via this link or from the usual podcast platforms. I was invited to contribute to an event in Leicester back in October last year and also on the panel that evening was Grant Butterworth , who I have known for a long time. Grant kindly invited me down early for a tour of the city, which I readily accepted because Leicester is not a place that I knew well and Grant is always fine company. Anyway, as we were walking around and Grant was pointing out this scheme and that scheme he suggested to me that I really should invite Peter Soulsby on to the podcast, and so I did, Peter accepted, and we met at some studios on the outskirts of Leicester in January. Peter, or rather Sir Peter, has been a politician for over fifty years. He was first elected to Leicester City Council in 1973, but lost his seat in 2003. In between he served as the Leader of the Council twice. Peter was then the MP for Leicester South from 2005 until he resigne...

Episode 171 of 50 Shades of Planning is available now via this link or from the usual podcast platforms. I was invited by Lorenzo Pandolfi of Logic Planning back in February to a seminar that he was hosting jointly with Simone Pagani of GIA Surveyors. They had invited Chris Katkowski of Kings Chambers and Russell Harris of Landmark Chambers to tell the story of the Shard inquiry. I was disappointed not to be able to make it, I recall that I was in Newcastle that afternoon, but one of the benefits of being an amateur podcaster is that if I cannot attend something I can politely enquire as to the possibility of it being recorded. Not just for me, obviously, but for the 50 Shades listenership as well. As it so happens, and perhaps not surprisingly, the event was oversubscribed and so it was agreed that we would turn it into a 50 Shades episode. Over the course of an hour and a quarter or so you will hear two of our most prominent KCs share their recollections of one of the most consequen...

Episode 170 of the podcast is available now via this link or from the usual podcast platforms. "The second (epochal change) is the technology revolution led by developments in artificial intelligence, which will change everything. I mean everything. There is no point in debating whether this technological revolution is a good or bad thing. Just know it is a ‘thing’. In fact, it is ‘the thing’. It will displace jobs, though creating new ones, but no one yet knows the full consequence. Companies and countries will rise or fall on the back of it. It will revolutionise the private sector and should in time revolutionise public services and government. Yet people in most countries, including Britain, have no idea what is about to hit them." Not my words, Readers, but the words of Tony Blair in his recent essay . What is about to hit us? What are the implications of AI in the planning context? What does it mean for what we do now and what we might do in the future? What are the le...

Episode 169 of 50 Shades of Planning is available now via this link 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 first 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. First, Labour, and a conversation recorded with Elsie Blundell and Mike Reader back in March. Andrew, regular listeners will know, is Group Planning and Sustainability Director at Vistry, Elsie represents Heywood and Middleton North and Mike represents Northampton South. Andrew explores with Elsie and Mike...

Episode 168 of the podcast is available now via this link or from the usual podcast platforms. I was in Manchester recently and took the opportunity whilst there to catch up with friends of the podcast Charlotte Leach, Katie Wray, Claire Petricca-Riding and Paul Smith. Charlotte runs her own communications and strategic advisory business, Katie is a Director at Deloitte Real Estate, Claire is a Partner and National Head of Planning & Environmental Law at Irwin Mitchell, and Paul is Managing Director at The Strategic Land Group and a Housing Today columnist. Our conversation, recorded at Reform Radio , was a good old fashioned 50 Shades-style ramblechat. We started with the local elections and then from Reform got on to planning reform and back again and before we knew it an hour had passed by.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, when two property professionals meet, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, their first talk is of the planning system. When two planners meet their first talk might not be of the RTPI, but very often, I find, conversations ultimately lead in that direction. For example, as you might have heard, during podcast episode 159 the point was made that, if the Masters required for chartered status burdens graduates with a year's more debt, and employers, certainly consultancies, do not in a tight labour market require such status, why would they stay at University for that final year or take on two years of part-time study? As another example, you might have seen recently that planners at Basildon were subjected to some pretty unpleasant behaviour by some councillors on the planning committee. Discussions with people about that led me to wonder how many planners within LPAs are chartered and so might expect to be able to rely on the RTPI for support were they to laun...