Planner pen portraits
Number five: The planning manager
As a teenager I had no idea what I wanted to do but I always had an interest in places and ended up becoming a planner. I had lots of contemporaries who went into the private sector, but I always wanted to work in the public sector and have felt lucky that I could have the chance to progress a career here.
I enjoy the variety of work in a council and taking an interventionist approach to planning, trying to actually implement the local plan. It’s about deciding how places should grow and taking communities with you. It’s about achieving good development for people. There’s a moral drive to try and do things to make places better, but it’s challenging when you’ve had to sack half your staff.
I worry about the quality of work we get when we put work out to tender. I worry we need to do more to make sure planning has a seat at the top table in local authorities, so that we can influence the big decisions (any pay raise for me would be entirely incidental).
There is no reason why the public sector cannot be as efficient and effective as the private sector and re-invest the benefits of that in our communities rather than sending them off to shareholders. That is the public interest, absolutely central, and the reason I get out of bed every morning and am still checking emails late every night!
Quotes
"I would say certain people in the local community don’t like me, so have I served their interests?"
"I don’t think it’s because I’m getting old, but we’re possibly driven more by process and I suppose it does drive me through the roof sometimes."
"It’s beaten into you right the way through. Public interest is an interesting thing because you can hide behind it or you can serve it."
"To create new places and build communities. It’s really critical, it has a really important role to play in health and housing and getting people about and accessing services, so big picture stuff."
"In a local government context, you’re not making money to make money, you’re making money to serve the public interest in some way."
"It’s about how you act and how you serve people."
"The public interest test is absolutely there, that’s why I’m determined to keep building houses, when a lot of middle-class people have already got houses say that you shouldn’t because the public interest test isn’t about the majority of people who shout, it’s about serving the needs of the whole community."
"I think the public interest can be very local."
"I think it’s conduct, consistency and maintaining your professionalism because there’ll be instances, I’m sure, when you’re dealing with councillors, sometimes there might be pressure, if they want to support a certain scheme, professionally, people can’t do that. You need to be mindful of ethics and Code of Conduct and that kind of stuff."
Notes
Works in local government and has managerial responsibilities for other planners
May have some brief private sector experience, but likely to have been in the public sector for most or all of their career
Probably sees the public interest as a vital justification for planning and may have used the term – or the term ‘the public good’ – in everyday practice
Possibly sees planning as needing to drive what’s good for the public, thinking an understanding of that originates with planners rather than the public
Most likely has a rich understanding of local politics and stakeholder attitudes
Perhaps sees professionalism as about protecting planners from councillors