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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

00:59:04

Housing by popular demand

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/07/06

One of the new Labour Government’s manifesto pledges is the construction of 1.5 million new homes between now and the end of this new parliament.“We will ensure local communities continue to shape housebuilding in their area, but where necessary Labour will not be afraid to make full use of intervention powers to build the houses we need”, the manifesto states, which strikes a markedly different tone to the emphatically localist one adopted by the Conservatives upon entering office back in

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00:54:29

What do we want?

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/06/22

With a General Election now imminent Sam Stafford thought that it might be interesting to try to compare what is being offered by the main political parties in relation to housing, planning and development with what the housing, planning and development sector would like to see being offered. In a conversation recorded at Outset Studios in Shoreditch Sam speaks to new friends of the podcast Richard Blyth, Tony Mulhall, Marie Chadwick and Ian Fletcher, and old friend of the podcast Paul

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01:05:10

Efficiency Savings

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/06/15

In February 2024 Planning published a special report by Joey Gardiner entitled ‘how cost-saving consultants disrupted council planning services’. Cash-strapped councils have been following management consultants’ advice to split up their planning teams. Staff have been put into central departments to handle additional non-planning tasks. But the upshot, say critics, has been declining performance and a staff exodus. Joey’s piece highlighted the tumult at Tandridge, which in 2020 was formally

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00:58:06

Neutral Impact III (and a bit of Green Belt)

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/06/01

When Sam Stafford first covered nutrient neutrality, in February 2021, he described the process of eutrophication as a bit like the podcast itself: a little niche, but very important.When Sam published a second episode in September 2022 it had grown in importance to the extent that Prime Minister Liz Truss had pledged to "scrap nutrient neutrality rules". A Government press release issued in August 2023 stated that “through an amendment to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill (LURB), the

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00:59:32

Love Thy Neighbourhood Plan

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/05/18

What are we to make of neighbourhood planning? Friend of the podcast Ben Castell considers it a “grassroots planning revolution”. Perhaps less favourably it conjures for others images of corduroy and tweed-clad councillors convening a parish council working group to thwart plans for an incinerator or, worse still, new housing.With neighbourhood planning now part of the furniture, but with the current opposition and possible next Government talking about ‘taking planning up a level’, Sam

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00:47:21

Grey Belt

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/05/04

Sam Stafford was in London recently and took the opportunity to catch up with friends of the podcast Catriona Riddell, Shelly Rouse and Nicola Gooch at Soho Radio Studios. One topic, the hot topic of the past few weeks, dominated the conversation.“Labour pledges housebuilding drive on Grey Belt with ‘golden rules’ to boost public services, affordable homes and improve green spaces”, so announced a press release dated 19 April. Keir Starmer has today set out five ‘golden rules’ for Grey Belt

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00:46:16

A Hillside to die on

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/04/20

Sam Stafford was in Manchester recently and took the opportunity to catch up with friends of the podcast Greg Dickson and Claire Petricca-Riding.During a conversation recorded at Reform Radio they talked about another exciting few weeks in the fast-paced, ever-changing, rock and roll world of town and country planning. They talked about RPs not bidding for Section 106 sites, they talked about the 'Accelerated Planning System' consultation, so the proposals for the new Section 73B, the ten

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01:06:14

Hitting the High Notes - Nick Kilby

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/04/13

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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00:48:50

Banishing Boxland

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/03/23

The Prime Minister recently announced plans to "turbocharge" development within England's largest towns and cities to mark a Government consultation on strengthening planning policy for brownfield development.Sam Stafford thought then that now would be a good time to share a conversation that he recorded online in August 2023 with old friends of the podcast David Milner and Rebecca Coley, and new friend of the podcast Mark Aylward, about the redevelopment of big box retail parks. The prompt

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00:51:47

Capturing the Zeitgeist

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/03/09

This episode is a ramblechat that Sam Stafford recorded in London with friends of the podcast Hashi Mohamed, Simon Ricketts, Nicola Gooch and Andrew Taylor during which they reflected on another exciting few weeks in the fast-paced, ever-changing, rock and roll world of town and country planning.The conversation takes in the back-dating of Section 106 indexation and what that says about local authority finances; the need to consider PPAs, statutory consultees and performance targets in the

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00:53:10

Critical Infrastructure

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/02/24

Building GP surgeries, schools and roads is not just difficult it is so difficult, according to no less of an expert on such matters than the Prime Minister, as to be a reason to not even contemplate growing existing towns and cities. In introducing recent proposals to put “rocket boosters” under construction in existing built-up areas, Rishi Sunak was quoted in The Times as saying that “We need to build homes in the places where people need and want them. There’s little point trying to force

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00:54:57

Hitting the High Notes - Simon Ricketts

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/02/03

This episode is another in the Hitting The High Notes series.If you have not listened to one before the basic proposition 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

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00:57:47

NPPF 2023 Update - What Next?

50 Shades of Planning ·

2024/01/20

At the kind invitation of Landmark Chambers and Town Legal, Sam Stafford was in London this week to contribute to a seminar on the NPPF update, which, eagle-eyed 50 Shades Listeners no doubt spotted, emerged as part of a cavalcade of Planning Reform Day announcements before Christmas. The seminar was over-subscribed and so was recorded in order that it could be shared more widely as a podcast. This episode features: Rupert Warren KC talking about the implications of the NPPF for housing

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01:02:01

🏆The #Planaraks Awards 2023🏆

50 Shades of Planning ·

2023/12/30

Hopefully everybody involved in the fast-paced, ever-changing, rock and roll world of town and country has had a restful Christmas and have managed to combine at least a little rest with digesting the cavalcade of announcements on Planning Reform Day. This episode is the third of the festive 50 Shades triumvirate looking back at 2023. The first two did so by way of the 50 Shades Festive Christmas Quizzes. This third episode sees the return of Zack Simons’ Planaraks Awards, which Zack has again

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01:04:29

🎅🏻The 50 Shades of Planning Festive Christmas Quiz -...

50 Shades of Planning ·

2023/12/23

Well Planning Reform Day finally arrived, just in time for the profession to be able to digest a cavalcade of announcements over Christmas, but not in time for the second and third of the festive 50 Shades episodes. The podcast will be covering the new NPPF in due course, but put all of that hullabaloo to one side for now and let Sam Stafford and friends take a second look at another exciting year in the fast-paced, ever-changing, rock and world of town and country planning. This is the

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00:51:08

☃️The 50 Shades of Planning Festive Christmas Quiz -...

50 Shades of Planning ·

2023/12/16

So it is Christmas and, as Sam Stafford was asked in his appraisal, what have you done? Another year over and a new one just begun. If you cannot actually remember what you have done this year and if, as you look back, it has just been a blur of government consultation after government consultation, then the 50 Shades of Planning podcast is here to jog your memory and hopefully spread a little festive cheer. Or, Sam hopes, at least fill an hour or so during the wait, as is becoming another

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00:55:09

Pre-Apps & PPAs

50 Shades of Planning ·

2023/12/09

As far back as Sam Stafford can remember Planning Performance Agreements (PPAs) have been the answer to questions about both how to get more resources into LPAs and how to improve application timescales. As Sam says in introducing this episode, he has been working for over twenty years, those questions remain unanswered, and PPAs remain a code yet to be cracked. Why, for example, according to Planning Magazine, were PPAs used for 30.3% of decisions in Solihull last year, but only in 1.3% of

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01:00:55

A B~~~~~'s Muddle

50 Shades of Planning ·

2023/12/02

Before heading to London for the week, Sam Stafford caught up with 50 Shades stalwarts Paul Smith, Katie Wray and Ian Wray for a wide-ranging ramblechat at the Reform Radio studios in Manchester. Paul is Managing Director at the Strategic Land Group, a Director at the LPDF and a columnist for Housing Today. Katie is a Director at Deloitte. Ian is an Honorary Professor and Fellow at the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice & Place at the University of Liverpool and a Fellow of

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01:11:59

Going Public

50 Shades of Planning ·

2023/11/25

The RTPI's recently published ‘State of the Profession’ report identified, perhaps unsurprisingly, that planners are increasingly being employed in the private sector, with numbers growing by a third over the last decade. The number of planners working in the public sector has reportedly shrunk by a quarter over the same period. Pleasingly though and perhaps contrary to preconceptions, this flow is not one way and some planners are making the move into or back into the public sector. The

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01:00:12

A Plan for England

50 Shades of Planning ·

2023/11/11

"Regional Spatial Strategies bridged the gap between those planning issues determined by local policy or concern, and those subject to policy goals defined at a national level – such as those for housing or renewable energy. The intended abolition of regional spatial planning strategies leaves a vacuum at the heart of the English planning system which could have profound social, economic and environmental consequences set to last for many years” So concluded, presciently, the all party Commons

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