Planner pen portraits

Number one: The local government lifer

I’m a bit of an old cynic and like to present myself as a ‘guerrilla in the bureaucracy’ but deep down I really believe in the idea that planning can help make people’s lives better and improve the environment.

I keep talking about retiring or finding something else to do with my time, but I still have a residual belief in local government making a difference. Perhaps it’s my leftist bent and a memory of the original ‘change the world’ idealism (and ego) with which I entered planning.

I don’t think the public sector is perfect and would say my loyalty is more to the people and place where I work, but not the council. However, although I recognise the shortcomings of senior officers and councillors, I really don’t feel I’d fit in the private sector.

I think there is a fundamental difference between working for an organisation whose driver is the public interest and one whose driver is profit, which is like a drugs habit: addictive and making you less objective. I, of course, am always objective. I’m a bit unusual in these post-austerity days, there’s not many like me left in the council, so I think it’s all the more important for me to make the case, giving that ‘fearless’ advice and help people do the right thing.

Quotes

"I would struggle to see how being taken over by a company like Capita could ultimately be seen to be working in the public interest."

"I think it’s about seeking to making a difference, trying to make a difference to people’s living environments. Planning is about making people’s lives better, fundamentally. I was brought up in that atmosphere and it was one of the main drivers for me into town planning."

"In practice it’s a top down approach, this is what the government says we need to be doing, this is what we’re going to do … a bad model as a local authority planner."

"When I was a planning student, I imagined it was a much more rational process than it is."

"I know councillors don’t get the best press, but I still believe they are elected by their communities to represent them. It’s local democracy. Local people have to decide what happens to their local area."

"Then you go into development management and … often it’s just a case of damage limitation, smoothing off the rough edges of development."

"I would challenge another planner’s actions, even though they’re effectively wearing the same badge as you … I would challenge things when I think they’re wrong and have done many, many times and often lose the battle, but it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do it again."

"I think there’s a fundamental difference between working for an organisation whose key driver is public interest and working for an organisation whose key driver is making a profit."

"The consultant will remain nameless, but he was trying to convince me that this scheme – which was the worst scheme ever, honest, the worst ever – was good and it was appalling … I suppose that’s why I could never work in the private sector because I would be too honest."

"The RTPI has a foot in both camps."

Notes

  • Entered the profession before 1990 and has worked in local government ever since

  • Slightly less numerous than pre-austerity

  • More likely to be male

  • Typically views planning’s purpose as about making people’s lives better

  • May comment on seeing the democratic process as an integral part of planning

  • Likely to be cynical about various reforms and concerned planning’s role has been reduced to ‘damage limitation’

  • May believe you’re able to be a bit more challenging about schemes from the relative security of the public sector, and think you’re able to act more professionally in terms of giving robust planning advice when you’re not concerned about client fees

  • Possibly left leaning politically, having entered planning believing it could help change the world