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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 its 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 and

government politics

All Episodes

00:54:37

All Around The World - USA

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/08/16

This is the first of a new series of episodes being led by Paul Smith, who regular 50 Shades listeners will know is the Managing Director at the Strategic Land Group and a Housing Today columnist.Paul put it to Sam Stafford recently that debates about the planning system in England tend, for the most part, to focus solely on the planning system in England. Paul wanted to remedy that and so in this series he will chat with planning professionals and academics from a number of countries to find

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01:03:04

New politics, New Towns and new books

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/08/02

Sam Stafford was in Manchester recently and took the opportunity to catch up with old friends of the podcast Ian Wray, Claire Petricca-Riding and David Diggle, and new friends of the podcast Charlotte Leach and Louise Fountain. Over the course of an hour or so they enjoyed a good ol’ fashioned 50 Shades ramblechat. They talked about the increasingly rancorous nature of planning and whether a sense of fractiousness and febrility is driving the rise of Reform as a political force. They also

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00:53:43

Hitting the High Notes - Tim Waring

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/07/19

This episode sees the welcome return of the Hitting the High Notes series, the basic proposition of which is that Sam Stafford chats to preeminent figures in the planning and property sectors about the six planning permissions or projects that helped to shape them as professionals. And, so that listeners can get to know people a little better personally, for every project or stage of their career Sam also asks his guests for a piece of music that reminds them of that period. Think of it as town

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01:14:03

The Snagging List

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/07/05

By common consensus there will a considerable increase in the submission of planning applications this year, certainly applications for residential development and certainly driven by applications on the Grey Belt.Data published by the LPDF in February suggested a 160% increase in the number of planning applications to be submitted by it’s members between January and June 2025 compared to the number submitted between July and December 2024. The key point narrowly is that if an increase in

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01:05:36

All Builders Big and Small

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/06/21

It has been another exciting few weeks in the fast-paced, ever-changing rock and roll world of town and country planning...“Thousands of new homes promised to communities will be delivered faster, thanks to major changes to make sure developers deliver on their commitments and do not leave sites half-finished for years”, announced a MHCLG press release on Sunday 25 May. “This government has taken radical steps to overhaul the planning system to get Britain building again after years of

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01:34:43

Grey Belt: policy guidance and appeals

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/06/07

For how long Grey Belt remains part of the policy landscape time will tell, but in the here and now it represents very welcome political recognition that the homes the country needs cannot be built without developing land that is currently identified as Green Belt.The irresistible force, it has been said, has started to shift the immoveable object... If that dynamic continues it may prompt questions about what the Green Belt should actually be for and, perhaps, a Royal Commission on it’s

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00:48:19

A conversation with Michael Gove

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/05/24

This episode is a conversation between Sam Stafford and former Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the Rt Hon. the Lord Gove.Famous in political circles. Infamous, some might say, in planning circles. The Parliament of 2019-2024 was tumultuous for everybody, but for planning specifically it was an especially tumultuous time. There was the 2020 'Planning for the Future' White Paper, which Mr Gove inherited in 2021, the same year as the Chesham & Amersham

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00:52:28

Pre-Apps, Puddles & NDMPs

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/05/10

When in Manchester recently Sam Stafford took the opportunity to catch up with friends of the podcast David Diggle, Paul Smith, Rebecca Coley and Claire Petricca-Riding and over the course of an hour or so they talked about a few of the hot topics that are exercising the planning profession at the minute.Those hot topics include the widely anticipated spike in planning applications this year; locally-set fees, pre-apps and PPAs; the Flood Risk Sequential Test, NDMPs, and, very briefly towards

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01:02:03

The BNG

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/04/26

Over a year on from it becoming mandatory, what is to be made of BNG?On the one hand, according to an open letter signed by a 40-strong coalition of housebuilders and environmental groups to mark the first anniversary, “BNG is a true success story. Over the past year, it has unlocked unprecedented investment in local habitats, while also driving green growth.” On the other hand, only a tenth of respondents to Planning’s consultants survey believed that the system is working well, perhaps

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00:59:50

If I Ruled the World

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/04/12

Sam Stafford was down in The Big Smoke recently and took the opportunity to catch up with friends of the podcast Matthew Spry, Simon Ricketts, Hana Loftus, Vicky Payne and Mike Kiely.In a good ol’ fashioned Adam Buxton-style ramblechat they talked about anything and everything. They talked about stat cons; they talked about skills, resources and leadership within LPAs; they talked about the need for efficiency gains in development management to deal with the expected uptick in planning

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01:40:58

Back in Black

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/03/29

The fast-paced, ever-changing, rock and roll world of town and country planning has been especially fast-paced, ever-changing and rock and roll of late.How then to try to catch up? Sam Stafford thought that the best way of doing so was to reprise the ‘Labour of Love’ episode that he published back in August of last year. Here then you will hear elements of nine conversations recorded online between friends of the podcast old and new about nine themes of the Government’s crystalising reform

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01:05:32

A Brief History of Planning 2010-2024

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/10/19

Back in March 2024 friend of the podcast Catriona Riddell gave a lecture at UCL’s Bartlett School of Planning that she called ‘Strategic Planning in England - Where did we go so wrong?’.Sam Stafford couldn’t be there that night, but Catriona shared her slides on LinkedIn and they read to Sam almost like a ‘Brief History of Planning 2010-2024’, which he thought a good subject for an episode. As well as Catriona, who was Director of Planning at the South East England Regional Assembly when

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01:04:33

100 Days of Labour

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/10/12

Saturday 12 October 2024 marks 100 days of the new Labour Government.In anticipation of this milestone Landmark Chambers and Town Legal hosted a seminar in London this week to provide an in-depth review of Labour's first 100 days in power and the impact on planning law and policy. The session was recorded so that Sam Stafford could share it by way of the 50 Shades podcast and planners will be glad that it was recorded because it contains analysis and insight of the highest order. This

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00:52:56

Not the NPPF

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/10/05

Last week, on NPPF deadline day, Sam Stafford was in Manchester and took the opportunity to catch up with friends of the podcast Katie Wray, David Diggle, Greg Dickson, Mark Parkinson and Claire Petricca-Riding at the studios of Reform Radio.Conscious that the podcast has covered the revised NPPF in episodes 128 and 131, they talked about some of the other current hot planning topics. They talked about brownfield passports and why existing tools in the box are not being used already; they

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00:53:57

The YIMBY Crowd

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/09/21

"‘The moment has come’: pro-building Labour YIMBYs are set to raise the roof" was the title of a piece in the Observer ahead of the Labour Party Conference (link below).For many of the most ambitious of the new cohort of Labour MPs, this is the fashionable campaign of the moment, not for economic growth but as a social justice movement – and one that many of the new millennials entering parliament hope to stake their careers on. Inside Labour it is not a left-right divide, but some of its

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00:55:56

The Masterplan

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/09/07

If you have listened to episodes 125 and 128 you will know Sam Stafford sought to cover, pre-publication, what could and should be in the new version of NPPF. With the consultation deadline now starting to loom large, this episode seeks to cover what is actually in it.Sam was in London earlier this week and caught up with friends of the podcast Andrew Taylor, Hashi Mohamed, Vicky Payne and Simon Ricketts at Soho Radio Studios. They will need no introduction to regular listeners, but for new

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01:04:55

Hitting the High Notes - Mike Best

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/08/31

In Hitting the High Notes episodes Sam Stafford chats to preeminent figures in the planning and property sectors about the six planning permissions or projects that helped to shape them as professionals. And, so that Listeners can get to know people a little better personally, for every project or stage of their career Sam also asks his guests for a piece of music that reminds them of that period. Think of it as town planning’s equivalent of Desert Island Discs.Unlike Desert Island Discs you

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00:50:41

To rebuild or to retrofit?

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/08/17

To rebuild or to retrofit? That is the question posed by former Secretary of State Michael Gove’s intervention in planning applications for the redevelopment of M&S’ Oxford Street store and the former Museum of London building.According to the Climate Change Committee, direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions from buildings account for 23% of the UK total. How can we create energy-efficient, carbon neutral and climate resilient new buildings and what is needed to accelerate the

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01:44:41

Labour of Love

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/08/03

Sam Stafford has mentioned previously that the podcast would consider the new Government’s reform agenda and this is an attempt at doing so. The specifics of the NPPF consultation will be covered in more depth in due course, but what Listeners will hear in this jam-packed extravaganza of an episode is an exploration of that reform agenda in it’s broader sense.In anticipation of the NPPF, Sam invited some of the Shades alumni to discuss some of the policy areas of most interest to them and how

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01:21:32

Let's get digital

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/07/20

Long-serving Listeners might recall that for Episode 6 of 50 Shades of Planning Sam Stafford published a chat with Euan Mills, then of the Connected Places Catapult, on the potential for digital innovation, urban data, and user-centred design to improve the planning system.Euan, now CEO and co-founder of Blocktype, got in touch with Sam Stafford earlier this year and asked if he could put together an episode on the progress that has been made over the past five years towards this aim. This

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