A conversation with Ben Everitt

50 Shades of Planning

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Housing Market & Housing Delivery is a cross-party group of MPs and Peers dedicated to improving the UK housing market. It has published a report called ‘Hacking housing: nine supply side hacks to fix our housing system error’ (link below) and the recommendations include changing the narrative around new development; a ‘grown-up conversation’ about Green Belt and incentivising LPAs to plan positively.

Most eye-catching though are these recommendations.

"Making planning sexy

• Bring back the chief planner because going to work and designing communities that will last hundreds of years is actually a pretty cool job.
• Sub-regional spatial strategies which is possibly the least sexy sounding document around, but genuinely one of the most useful – a framework for strategic development, unencumbered by the constraints faced by Local Plans.
• More resources for planning teams, better paid planners because our planners are overworked, underpaid and unloved.
• More routes into planning so that we can meet demand with conversion courses, apprenticeships, visas and prestigious degrees.
• Whitehall shuffle: make the planning ministry sexy by elevating the role to cabinet level, having reporting lines from junior ministers in each government department, and placing the role in the Cabinet Office."

The Housing Market & Housing Delivery APPG is chaired by Ben Everitt who kindly gave up some of his time back in June this year to record a conversation with Sam Stafford.

Their conversation takes in many of the themes that underpin the report, as well as the role and standing of the planning profession, how Ben got into politics and Sam's old geography teacher…

Some accompanying reading.

‘Hacking housing: nine supply side hacks to fix our housing system error’

https://www.appghousing.org.uk/

Sam’s Green Belt blog

https://samuelstafford.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-green-belt-what-it-is-why-it-is.html

Some accompanying listening.

The Only Fools & Horses closing theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxOEhc960Bc

Some accompanying viewing

Jerry Springer’s Final Thought on British politics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-90FGJFrW1U

50 Shades T-Shirts!

If you have listened to Episode 45 of the 50 Shades of Planning you will have heard Clive Betts say that...

'In the Netherlands planning is seen as part of the solution. In the UK, too often, planning is seen as part of the problem'.

Sam said in reply that that would look good on a t-shirt and it does. Further details can be found here: http://samuelstafford.blogspot.com/2021/07/50-shades-of-planning-t-shirts.html