Pathways To Planning for the next generation...

Good Morning all.

Firstly, I’d like to thank the Planning Advisory Service (PAS) Team for inviting us here to speak in front of you today.

So thank you for this opportunity to share some of our Local Government experiences with you all and to share some of my thoughts, tips and insights of the opportunities that are ahead of you, now that you are part of the Pathway Programme!

I’m privileged to be this year’s Royal Town Planning Institute National YPOTY and also the RTPI West Midlands YPOTY so I have the honour to represent Young Planners being a voice for the profession across the national and international stage – this gives me the opportunity and the confidence to share my vision of the future of the profession and how I think all of you can contribute to this as you begin your careers in Planning and Local Government.

So as an introduction; I just wanted to take some time to congratulate you all for being part of this cohort of graduates coming through the Pathway to Planning programme. Being at the start of your planning career with this level of support ahead of you, is a great place to enter the working world and also into an industry which is facing short, medium and long-term challenges but is also at the forefront of solving our most challenging problems through regeneration, strategic placemaking and shaping the realty all around us. You all have a unique opportunity at the very start of your careers to understand that you will be? the ones who can really make a difference within Local Government and specifically within Planning and Regeneration departments across the country.

But I think it’s worth just delving a bit deeper into perhaps the reasons you are here and how we can ensure we tackle the talent pipeline issue we have in the industry through pathway programmes like this.

One of the areas I am challenging us all to address this year is the education pathways at present and a simple narrative change to the National Curriculum. All of you here would have progressed through school being taught Geography, learning about Planning from a young age but the context, being geography is never talked about as Planning or as how this alignment gives rise to a future ?career pathway. Children across the Country are learning about how cities function, how we build infrastructure to accommodate urban areas, inner city and town regeneration schemes, why we need affordable housing, why the UK industry developed the way it did through access to resources and how clusters of manufacturing developed over time – this is all Planning and Regeneration. Students are learning about weather patterns, the impact of climate change on local areas, biodiversity and solutions to tackling these issues. This is all Planning and Regeneration – yet it’s not framed in that context through School and also not framed with an end opportunity to work in an area which enables and facilitates how reality is shaped all around us. If we can embrace the equation that Geography = Planning = Citizenship then I think unlock a whole new generation of Planners starting there graduate programme before even graduating.

It’s not just Geography, the idea around this graduate pathway programme is that we want to attract the brightest talent into the Planning profession – in that sense the curriculum as a whole can be aligned back to Planning. History teaches us about how ancient civilisations grow and fall, we learn about Tudor economic planning, governance and Parliamentary structures, Georgian attention to detail and Victorian ingenuity, imagination and innovation; all relatable to how society functions at this current time. Yet we’re still debating 125 years later Garden City principles, using bricks, mortar and wood to build homes with – lots has changed but lots remains stuck in the past. These are concepts and theories which you will start to test when you come to do your Masters courses and reflect upon as you become Chartered Planners and throughout your careers.?

As Planners we’re reimagining public spaces, High Streets and the economy with Art and culture as key components to bind communities together – as a profession we’re now relatable to graduates from those areas as we need those talented artistic skillsets to imagine spaces for all and to integrate culture and music into the very fabric of place and place making.

Next up Maths– from experience we are well aware of the gap in skillsets within Local Authority Planning Team’s to fully understand the figures and finances around viability, scheme delivery and attracting major regeneration funding. Bringing maths graduates into Local Planning Teams will create much stronger skillsets to underpin how we bring forward regeneration through the financial and commercial acumen required by Planners to appraise development opportunities, to understand viability and bring forward delivery models – less prudential borrowing more Pythagoras…

And finally, Science – this is an area which I think will define the future of planning over the next 10, 20, 50-100 years. Integrating science into Planning to solve some of our pressing problems and find the pressing solutions - sustainable materials in urban design and construction – scientific solutions to tackle climate change, planning better outcomes through data sets and science derived from satellites and space related monitoring to assist the transition towards a future proofed digitally enabled planning system.

It’s pathways such as this programme which allow us to bring a diversified and skilled talent force into local government planning sector but with subtle changes to the narrative around education and planning, perhaps in 10 years the pipeline will be unblocked and programmes won’t be needed as your generation help shape this next narrative emerging.

We’re seeing the start of this in Sandwell with young, diverse and skilled graduates from the local area coming into our Regeneration Team – Alex being one of them, who came through the NGDP and others now via the Degree Apprenticeship route.

The next generation of planning leaders, thinkers, enablers are sitting in this room starting the journey towards transforming the country.

So a bit about me – I took a more conventional route but having graduated in the middle of the most recent recession – I had to take a more pragmatic approach and create my own pathway. Having graduated from the University of Birmingham with an Geography and Urban and Regional Planning degree I went back home to North Devon and starting working in a factory, working nights packing boxes of paracetamol...of course that didn’t last long, although being paid well, I came back to Birmingham like Dick Whittington to chance my arm in the big wide world. I approached a friend’s auntie at Warwickshire County Council and did a 3-month unpaid work placement in the Planning Policy Team. I then got a job on Sandwell Council Main reception – and had an amazing opportunity to understand Council’s from the ground up, by being the front face of the council on front reception. I approached the then Director of Regeneration seizing the initiative myself to send my CV and a covering email to his Secretary…I had one meeting with him and found myself seconded on a temporary basis into the Planning Enforcement Team – working on growing the S215 Grot Spots Programme - using 215 of the TCPA to engage with owners to improve buildings, sites and reverse the Broken Window Syndrome we see across so many Towns.? This then became a corporate priority and at that moment in time a Scorecard Priority which meant it was embedded into the Corporate agenda. We did so well in fact that I had to prepare a paper for the then SoS for DCLG Lord Eric Pickles. I was asked by Historic England to speak at a number of regional events about the use of 215 powers in historic settings – I also worked on Sandwell’s 2012 Olympic programme and interventions along the Torch route. All this within MY first 3 years working in the Public Sector. To the point that my work became a key part of our submission to the inaugural RTPI LPA of the Year Award which we won in 2014. I then moved to the Regeneration Team who sponsored me to complete my accredited masters qualification back at UoB in 2016 and became an MRTPI Chartered Planner in 2020 and now I stand here before you as Regen Team Leader, leading a team of 8 focused on the acceleration of +￡500million of regeneration investment into our ￡3bn pipeline.

So what does that mean for me Day to day that involves a myriad of different things – very varied role – from coaching the team, developing our strategic regeneration + growth plans, project managing areas of programme / project delivery - all the way to choosing RAL colours for planters in public realm schemes, creating a planting scheme for recent Urban Greening project I lead on and one I’m very proud of which is leading on the full restoration, re-imagining and transformation of a Grade 2 listed memorial fountain and clock in West Brom Town Centre – on another day I could be engaging with local students, politicians and businesses across the Borough and over my career so far meeting with a whole host of Senior Civil Servants, No 10 advisors and a couple of Govt Ministers! Not a PM…just yet…

More recently we’ve been focused on securing significant inwards investment into the Sandwell through Govt Levelling Up Funding –and as an LPA? securing just over 0.3bn of funding, this included being part of the senior team that secured ￡67.5m Towns Funding and Alex and I the leads on securing ￡25m for West Bromwich, alongside other various Levelling Up Partnership Funds.

Just to put into context how varied life in the Public Sector can be, next up for me is leading the team that will develop Sandwell’s Design Code and also assisting with our Innovation Strategy and a more long term plan starting to come to fruition about pivoting our manufacturing base towards the Industrial Space Sector and how this can contribute to reversing long term deprivation metrics here in Sandwell and an aim to grow our Regeneration pipeline to ￡5bn.

All this has 100% contributed to me becoming the RTPI YPOTY.

Now just briefly to touch upon some immediate highlights from my involvement with the RTPI – opportunities like being in front of you here today to try and inspire the next generations - but attending the RTPI Presidents Dinner before Christmas where the key leaders across Built Env institutions were gathered for dinner to discuss a Joint Manifesto which could be presented to any incoming government around the priorities for the built env, this was a massive highlight. Also, a very simple one but having the chance to see the Royal Seal at RTPI HQ was pretty class as well.

?I had the opportunity before I was YPOTY to speak at the National Planning Conference 2023 on a panel speaking about Planning in 2070 where I shared my vision of mission planning our place within the Solar System through a much bolder, ambitious national vision with an emphasis on the RTPI, UKSA AND DSIT aligning to mission plan a future UK vision for growth and I’m looking forward to attending the AP Conference where I will be showcasing the RTPI and the UK’s leading role in shaping planning discourse across the World.

All of this has been made possible by having support through my employer Sandwell Council and the great management around me but more so the opportunity to aspire to achieve anything within Local Govt and being a public servant to communities around me. This is a message which we share with new graduates and younger members of the team coming through – if you have a passion, desire and big ambition then the public sector offers that opportunity to succeed. ?

So in conclusion, you all have an amazing opportunity to create a lasting legacy through directly impacting areas, town, cities that you all live within or will be moving towards. It’s this lasting legacy that is my tip to you all – start planning with legacy in mind, keep thinking big, harness those big ideas and passion for areas you are all excelling in – if we can do that as a profession then we will tackle some of the biggest challenges and create substantial opportunities individually and collectively.

As you progress through this programme, make sure you take the time to reflect on all that you will achieve, look at where you are currently and the peers around you as you are the future Young Planners, Chief Planners, Chief Executives and Leaders that will make the biggest positive impact on this Nation. Boiling that down - make sure you embrace all the opportunities and experiences that come your way, plan with legacy in mind and keep reflecting on all you will achieve. So well done and I wish you all the best in your future careers, wherever that may take you.

Which is a lovely Segway into my colleague Alex Oxley who embodies this in everything he is achieving to date – including finishing off the build of Sandwell Aquatics Centre after the Commonwealth Games and co-authoring Sandwell’s Games Legacy Plan, harnessing AI tools and who has risen through the ranks to a Senior Position as a Capital Project’s Manager within Regeneration and Growth, alongside being a Committee Member of RTPI West Midlands YPs, a Pastor of Fun and the lead singer of a very talented band! Alex over to you!

Thank You…