50 Shades of Planning

The previous Government’s Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 introduced the legislative framework for a new system of local plan-making and in March 2026 the current Government introduced the regulations concerning this new regime. The headline changes are that local authorities will be required to complete plans within a condensed 30-month period; conduct three public consultations rather tha...

Whilst in London recently Sam Stafford took the opportunity to catch up with old friends of the podcast Simon Ricketts , Andrew Taylor and Mike Kiely . Simon is a Partner at Town Legal, Andrew is Group Planning and Sustainability Director at Vistry and Mike is a former Chief Planner, now independent planning consultant working mainly in the public sector as well as chairing the board of the Planni...

As regular listeners know there is often talk on the 50 Shades of Planning podcast about the role of local councillors in the planning system, in the context of, for example, overturning officer recommendations or a decision to withdraw a local plan. There is talk less often about the role of MPs, which is something that friend of the podcast Andrew Taylor wanted to remedy and this is the third of...

Sam Stafford was in Manchester recently and took the opportunity to catch up with old friends of the podcast Lisa Tye , Shaun Knights and Jaimie Ferguson . Lisa is a Partner at Town Legal, Shaun is a Senior Planning Officer at Preston City Council and Jaimie is a Company Director at Lucid In a conversation recorded at Reform Radio they discussed, principally, the new NPPF, but also touched upon th...

The basis of this episode was a series of posts Sam Stafford spotted that Nick Cuff at Urban Sketch had shared on his Prop Views blog about the Parkhurst Road judgement and the implications thereof. Sam asked Nick if he would like to explore the themes that he writes about with another new friend of the podcast Jamie Ratcliff , and old friends of the podcast Gilian Macinnes and Anthony Lee . Jamie...

Sam Stafford was at a symposium organised by Create Streets at Hatfield House in June last year called ‘Building for generations’. All of the presentations on the day and the conversations there upon led Sam back to the fundamental question as to why places look the way they do, which, it seemed to him on the train back that evening, would make for a good episode of a town planning-based podcast s...

Sam Stafford was in Birmingham recently and took the opportunity whilst there to catch up with old friend of the podcast Myles Wild Smith and new friends of the podcast Mike Knott , Bart Shirm and Beth Pywell . Myles is a Director at Lichfields, Mike is a Regional Practice Lead at Stantec, Bart is a Senior Planning Policy Officer at Sandwell and Beth is an Associate Director at Nexus. During a goo...

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 Sam Stafford chats 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 listeners can get t...

A couple of months ago Sam Stafford 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 int...

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 wh...

Sam Stafford 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...

This is the fourth of a series of episodes being led by the oldest friend of the podcast, Paul Smith . Paul put it to Sam Stafford 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...

Sam Stafford was invited to a ProCon Leicestershire event in Leicester in October 2025 and also on the panel that evening was his old friend Grant Butterworth. Grant, Head of Planning at Leicester City Council, kindly invited Sam down early for a tour of the city, and whilst so doing suggested that Peter Soulsby would make a good podcast guest. Peter has been a politician for over 50 years. He was...

This episode features the recording of an event hosted by Lorenzo Pandolfi and Simone Pagani in February 2026. Lorenzo and Simone invited Chris Katkowski and Russell Harris to tell the story of the Shard inquiry. Chris and Russell, two of the most prominent KCs in the country, share their recollections of one of the most consequential planning inquires of modern times. They talk about the characte...

"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. Compan...

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 wha...

Sam Stafford was in Manchester recently and took the opportunity to catch up with friends of the podcast Charlotte Leach , Katie Wray , Claire Petricca-Riding and Paul Smith . Their conversation, recorded at Reform Radio, was a good old fashioned 50 Shades-style ramblechat. They started with the local elections and then from Reform got on to planning reform and back again and before they knew it a...

The 2026 local elections will likely turn out to be significant for a number of reasons. Westminster psychodrama aside though, one area of immediate interest, for example, is what the increased number of councils under no overall control will mean for local plan-making. That is a topic to which Sam Stafford hopes the podcast will return in due course. Of similar immediate interest is the possible...

Sam Stafford was in Birmingham recently and took the opportunity to catch up with friends of the podcast Mike Best , Kathryn Ventham and Michelle Simpson-Gallego at PodHaus studios in Digbeth. They talked about why the recent consultation on areas for producing Spatial Development Strategies seemed to generate more interest in the West Midlands than other parts of the country (an issue for which t...

DEFRA recently launched a consultation on significant changes to it’s guidance on how Habitat Regulations Assessments should be carried out, which comes at an interesting time. It is, firstly, not long since DEFRA announced that Natural England and the Environment Agency have been given a new mandate to “prioritise outcomes over process” and “speed up decision-making while maintaining high environ...

Sam Stafford was in London recently and took the opportunity to catch up with old friends of the podcast Mike Kiely , Annie Gingell , Andrew Taylor and Iain Thomson , and new friend of the podcast Claire Tester . In a conversation recorded at Soho Radio they chatted about a few of the hot topics in the fast-paced, ever-changing, rock and roll world of town and country planning right now. They talk...

New Towns are back in the news because the Government has announced the first formal step in creating the next generation of them with the launch of a public consultation on the draft New Towns Programme and its environmental implications.   The consultation builds on the findings of the New Towns Taskforce report in September 2025 and invites views on how the New Towns Programme will operate, how...

This is the third of a series of episodes being led by the oldest friend of the podcast, Paul Smith . Paul put it to Sam Stafford 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...

Sam Stafford was in Manchester last week and took the opportunity to catch up with friends of the podcast Lisa Tye , Andrew Johnston and Louise Fountain to discuss some of the issues of the day.  In a conversation recorded at Reform Radio they talked about the imminent changes to appeal guidance; they talked about the design and placemaking PPG consultation; they talked about affordable housing de...

Strategic planning, as Sam Stafford said in the introduction to episode number 157, is back. That episode looked at what shape it is in right now. What have authorities been able to do whilst awaiting the consolidation of the Planning & Infrastructure Act, the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill? What the sector did not know just...