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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

00:58:29

The Return of Strategic Planning

50 Shades of Planning ·

2026/01/10

Strategic planning is back. What do we know? We know that Policy PM1 of the revised draft NPPF anticipates the move towards national coverage of Spatial Development Strategies (SDSs), as promised by the end of the parliamentary term, and clarifies their role, content, and relationship to other tiers of the development plan. SDSs are intended to be high-level documents focused on genuinely strategic, cross-boundary issues, leaving detailed policy to other plans. We know that the Planning

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01:22:58

🏆The #Planoraks Awards 2025🏆

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/12/27

This is the second of Sam Stafford's seasonal offerings which serve as a review of another exciting year in the fast-paced, ever-changing, rock and roll world of town and country planning.Once again Zack Simons kindly bestowed upon Sam the honour of announcing Zack's 2025 #Planoraks Awards on the podcast. Sam met Zack at Soho Radio Studios where and he handed him six golden envelopes, which you will hear opened during their conversation. They contain the winners of the following

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01:33:17

🎅🏻The 50 Shades of Planning Festive Christmas Quiz🎄

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/12/20

This episode sees the return of the 50 Shades of Planning Festive Christmas Quiz.Sam Stafford got together with friends of podcast Mike Kiely, Catriona Riddell, Annie Gingell, Andrew Taylor, Nicola Gooch, Shelly Rouse, Ben Castell and Gilian Macinnes to review what has been another exciting year in the fast-paced, ever-changing, rock and roll world of town and country planning. Based upon a selection of Planning Magazine’s most-read stories (kindly provided by Richard Garlick), Sam tested

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01:00:19

Discretion Advised

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/12/06

Sam Stafford was in Manchester recently and took the opportunity to catch up with old friend of the podcast Charlotte Leach and new friends of the podcast Andrew Johnston and Lisa Tye.Over the course of an hour so they chatted about a few of the hot topics exercising the planning profession at minute. They talked about ‘the next phase of planning reform’ as set out in a written ministerial statement issued by the Secretary of State last month. That takes in the "unleashing" of development

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01:03:20

The Snagging List II

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/11/22

Empirical evidence is starting to emerge, as speculated upon earlier in the year, that there will indeed be a significant increase in the number of planning applications being submitted this year, certainly for residential development and largely, it is held, driven by the introduction of Grey Belt. TerraQuest, the company behind the Planning Portal, has reported that the number of new homes for which planning permission was sought between 1 July and 30 September 2025 was 68% higher than during

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00:48:12

All Around The World - Australia

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/11/08

This is the second 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. Planners here 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 professionals and academics from a number of countries to find out what works well

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01:04:21

Planorama

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/10/25

In between movin' and shakin' in The Big Smoke recently Sam Stafford took the opportunity to meet a few friends of the podcast at Soho Radio Studios to pick out the highlights from another exciting few weeks in the fast-paced, ever-changing, rock and roll world of town and country planning.Sam caught up with, and the episode features, old friends of the podcast Simon Ricketts, Annie Gingell, Shelly Rouse and Hana Loftus, and new friend of the podcast Hayley White. Over the course of an hour

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01:28:54

The Amazing Technicolour Green Belt

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/10/11

Charles Goode hosted an event in Birmingham in September 2025 to mark the launch of his book, “The Green Belt, Housing Crises and Planning Systems” (link below). Charles invited Catriona Riddell, Mike Best and James Corbet Burcher to join him at that event and Sam Stafford invited the four of them to record a conversation about the Green Belt beforehand.In a conversation recorded at Birmingham Podcast Studios during the afternoon before Charles’ book launch, the four of them dived as deep

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01:02:01

Who's In Control

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/09/27

Wrexham Council will defend its opposition to plans for 600 homes on land south of Holt Road against the advice of planning officers.The application is due to go to appeal on September 29 but at a meeting of Wrexham County Borough Council’s Planning Committee on Monday, senior planning officer Matthew Phillips said no-one within the council’s planning department could represent the council in front of Planning and Environment Decisions Wales inspectors. “I would be in a difficult position

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01:00:46

Hitting the High Notes - Alice Lester

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/09/13

This is the fourteenth episode in Sam Stafford's Hitting the High Notes series.If you have not listened to one of these before the basic proposition is that Sam 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

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01:04:02

What's Going On?

50 Shades of Planning ·

2025/08/30

Sam Stafford was in London recently and took the opportunity to catch up with friends of the podcast Nicola Gooch, Catriona Riddell, Andrew Taylor, Annie Gingell and Iain Thomson.Over the course of an hour or so at Soho Radio Studios they enjoyed a good ol’ fashioned 50 Shades-style ramblechat about a few of the hot topics exercising the planning profession at the moment. They talked water neutrality and about statutory consultees, specifically the need to engage utility providers with the

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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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