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PODCAST

50 Shades of Planning

Samuel Stafford

50 Shades of Planning is Sam Stafford’s attempt to explore the foibles of the English planning system and it"s aim is to cover the breadth of the sector both in terms of topics of conversation and in terms of guests with different experiences and perspectives. 50 Shades episodes include "Hitting The High Notes", which are a series of conversations with leading planning and property figures. The conversations take in the six milestone planning permissions or projects within a contributor’s career

government politics

All Episodes

01:10:33

The Unearned Increment

50 Shades of Planning ·

2021/02/03

Consensus between economists is rare, but almost all agree that there is a moral argument for the taxation of land. Planning reform, death and taxes have long been three of life’s certainties. Land taxation and the concept of betterment dates back at least to the time of Henry VI who is thought to have captured the value of land improved by royal investment in flood defences. Winston Churchill spoke in 1919 of the “unearned increment” accrued by landowners following public investment in

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00:56:29

Can the British plan?

50 Shades of Planning ·

2021/01/19

'Can the British plan? Sometimes it seems unlikely. Across the world we see grand designs and visionary projects: new airport terminals, nuclear power stations, high-speed railways, and glittering buildings. It all seems an unattainable goal on Britain's small and crowded island; and yet perhaps this is too pessimistic. For the British have always planned, and much of what we have today is the result of past plans, successfully implemented...' This is the synopsis of 'Great British Plans' by

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00:44:54

Reflections on 2020 - Part 2

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/12/27

Is it right that old times be forgotten, asks Robert Burns in the opening line of Auld Lang Syne. Instinctively one might want to say yes to that insofar as 2020 is concerned. Much has been lost, but it’s also right to say that much has been gained too. We are at home more, a trend that might have happened at a much slower pace if at all in some places, and we are perhaps working more patiently and emphatically with each other, which is a trend that probably would not have happened at all. It

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00:33:50

Reflections on 2020 - Part 1

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/12/18

Little did Sam Stafford know when recording Episode 14 in Manchester at the end of February 2020 that every episode for the rest of the year, and who knows how far beyond, would need to be recorded remotely. This is the first of two episodes that feature reflections on 2020 from past contributors to the 50 Shades of Planning Podcast. It is hoped that it serves two purposes. More immediately, it is hoped that in taking the time to listen you get chance to reflect on what you might have been

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00:52:05

Tall Stories

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/12/04

The nights have drawn in. It’s impossible as in previous years to nip out for a pint in order to escape Strictly or Celeb (at least it is in Tier 3). A long, inhospitable winter will have to be endured before there is any possibility of a springtime shot in the arm and a return to something approaching normal. Sprinkled on top of this bleakness for planners is that the handling of the White Paper arguably makes planning’s systemic challenges harder to tackle than should have been hoped

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01:10:31

Legal Eagles

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/11/18

Planning law is a serious business. If the lawyers need calling in then typically something going very well needs safeguarding or something going very badly needs salvaging. If lawyers do get called in then matters also get very formal. A protocol for this and a correct way of doing that. Lawyers and the law are to be revered... Planning law seems more important, more influential and more high-profile than ever. Planning lawyers themselves though seem more accessible, more engaging and more

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00:53:24

Beauty is in the eye of the freeholder

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/10/16

‘We want to ensure that we have a system in place that enables the creation of beautiful places that will stand the test of time’ states the 'Planning for the future' White Paper. Not just well-designed places. Beautiful places. The Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, set up to advise government on how to promote and increase the use of high-quality design for new build homes and neighbourhoods, proposed that beautiful placemaking be a legally enshrined aim of the planning

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01:10:09

The High Street is dead, long live the High Street

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/09/30

‘Vital and Viable’, the good practice guidance that accompanied the old PPG6 included a large survey of planning authorities. A fifth of town centres in 1995, it was reported, were then thought to be ‘declining’, while only a few metropolitan cities and historic towns thought of themselves as ‘vibrant’. What would the results of such a survey be now? Oasis, Warehouse, Debenhams and Cath Kidston have filed for administration and between M&S, John Lewis, Boots and WH Smith 14,000 jobs could

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01:09:13

The Numbers Game

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/09/17

“At the moment, some local authorities can duck potentially difficult decisions, because they are free to come up with their own methodology for calculating ‘objectively assessed need’. So, we are going to consult on a new standard methodology for calculating ‘objectively assessed need’, and encourage councils to plan on this basis.” So said the ‘Fixing our broken housing market’ White Paper in February 2017. It might have been hoped that the introduction of the standard method in 2018 would

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00:51:21

Places & Spaces

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/09/08

A place, in the urban context at least, is its buildings, the spaces around them and the hustle and bustle of people making their way betwixt and between them. The only place that many people have known for a while though is home. On the one hand we have got to know our local environs more, but, on the other, and as we creep tentatively back into towns and cities, how will we find urban places now? The buildings are less densely populated and might soon need to be used for different things

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01:02:39

A conversation with Chris Findley

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/08/25

In a piece written during a recent period of furlough leave Sam Stafford posited that a career is like climbing a mountain in that the real reward is at the top when you can sit back, with the greatest possible perspective, and take it all in. Sam gets the chance to test that theory in this episode by chatting to Chris Findley who, as many North West-based 50 Shades listeners will know, recently retired after a 42 year career that included 26 years at Salford City Council. The conversation

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01:00:12

Planning Reform Day

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/08/14

The decorations have been taken down, the uneaten party food has been frozen for next time and all of the summary emails from planning consultants have been diligently saved in the ‘Government Policy’ folder. Another Planning Reform Day has been and gone, but this was a bigger one than usual. The sector had been whipped into a frenzy ever since Policy Exchange, from whence Downing Street’s housing and planning advisor came, published it’s ‘Rethinking the Planning System for the 21st Century’

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00:55:10

Jet Zero

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/08/07

‘This moment gives us a much greater chance to be radical and to do things differently’, said the Prime Minister with typical understatement in his Dudley speech at the end of June. ‘To build back better, build back greener, build back faster.’ Who could possibly disagree with that? Nobody, which is probably why the phrase was drafted like that. It means all things to all people, but the creative ambiguity, nee intellectual incoherence, is illustrated by the catchy ‘Jet Zero’ reference in that

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00:51:39

DCOs, NPSs & NSIPs

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/07/28

Will the Government's much vaunted radical reforms to the planning system allow Development Consent Orders (DCOs) to apply to large-scale, residential-led development proposals? It is an idea that has been around since DCOs, as wells as NPSs and NSIPs, were introduced by the Planning Act 2008, but perhaps now it’s time has come. As well as considering the efficacy of the DCO regime as it relates to infrastructure projects, an expanded DCO regime is considered in a report by Barton Willmore,

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01:01:23

Crosstown Traffic

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/07/16

The need for people to travel and the way in which they can travel has changed dramatically in a short period of time and, early on during the Coronavirus crisis especially, there was a sense that this change had the potential to be more permanent than temporary and contribute to the ‘Building Back Better’ agenda. As lockdown starts to ease though and traffic starts to flow again, or rather to not flow again, what is the sense of that change now? Is the window for a fundamental modal shift from

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01:01:46

Rules of Engagement

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/07/01

The grinding gears of the planning system need to be kept moving. On that most people can agree. Applying a little bit of lubricant within the bits of the system that largely pass the public by, extending consents and flexibility on things like CIL payments, for example, are relatively simple and relatively uncontroversial. What about though those bits of the system that are exposed to the outside world? The bits that rub up against public expectations. How, for as long as social distancing

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00:58:40

Everybody needs good neighbours

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/06/19

Where does the recent run of local plan failures at St Albans, Sevenoaks, Wealden and Chiltern & South Bucks leave the Duty to Cooperate (DtC)? As well as being bad law it seemed obvious to most practitioners at the time that the DtC was bad planning and a regression from the Regional Spatial Strategies that it sought to replace. What hope is there that forthcoming devolution and planning White Papers will tackle the underlying technical and political issues that undermine the DtC? If they

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00:53:58

APC, easy as 123

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/06/09

Sam Stafford, wary halfway through his career of becoming a world-weary, cynical member of the town planning establishment, seeks to recapture some of his zest by chatting in this episode to three newly and soon-to-be qualified planners about the first few years of their careers. Charles Jones works for Pegasus in Bath, Cathy O’Toole works for Pegasus in Birmingham and Tillie Baker works for Arup in Manchester. Sam's conversation with them takes in their experiences at university and the

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00:57:35

Stay Alert > Keep Planning > Improve Lives

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/05/27

Sam Stafford gets some of the 50 Shades gang back together for the type of Friday afternoon, Adam Buxton-style ramblechat that would have taken place in the pub a few months ago. Will the post-pandemic world really not be the same? Old habits do die hard after all. Perhaps a ‘90% world’ in which life will be close to ‘normal’ but subtly different? Sam's conversation with Paul Smith, Vicky Payne and Tom Whitehead takes in density, green space, civic space, active travel and city

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00:43:57

The CaMKOx Arc. Behind the curve?

50 Shades of Planning ·

2020/05/14

In a 2016 interim report on the Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford corridor, or the Arc, the National Infrastructure Commission identified the area as having “the potential to be “the UK’s Silicon Valley – a world-renowned centre for science, technology and innovation”. The Arc seems to have been 'the next big thing' since then, but is that potential any closer to being tapped? Is there any evidence that it really is a “national priority” and “one of the world’s greatest economic opportunities” as

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