The Friday Five 14.10.22
We're back! After a short(ish) break the Friday Five returns, with our usual mixture of top planing jobs and place-related factoids. Enjoy reading!
1. PLANNERS, GUILDFORD BOROUGH COUNCIL
Location: Guildford, Surrey
The job: “Guildford Borough Council is investing in its planning delivery service by seeking to fill existing and create new roles to undertake the Development Management function. The borough is currently post adoption of a new local plan, bringing forward a number of strategic sites across the borough and overseeing significant town centre development.
“We have also seen an extremely busy period of planning applications submitted at all levels. As a result we are seeking experienced planners at senior level to support the clearance of outstanding applications and aid in the delivery of our strategic sites driving regeneration and housing delivery.
“The roles include:
- Interim team leader to assist with staff management, the allocation of and signing off planning applications.
- Principal planning officers to assist the majors team with applications and support team leaders with management duties.
- Senior planning officers to deal with a major and minor level applications and provide support on strategic sites. "
Fun fact: The first definite written record of the sport of cricket being played in England locates it in Guildford. The mention of the game was made in 1598 by a coroner, John Derrick, while testifying in a dispute over ownership of a patch of common land. The then 59-year-old recalled playing creckett on the land as a child – at least 50 years earlier – while he was a pupil at the neighbouring free school (which still exists, as the Royal Grammar School).
In his testimony, Derrick is reported to have said that: “Being a scholler in the ffree schoole of Guldeford hee and diverse of his fellows did runne and play there at creckett and other plaies.”
Cricket is believed to have been created during Saxon or Norman times by children living in the Weald across Kent and Sussex. It is generally considered to have been a children's game until taken up by adults around the beginning of the 17th century – around the same time as Derrick’s testimony. the name of the game is thought to have come from Middle Dutch – the region had strong associations with Flanders at the time.
2. PLANNING TECHNICIAN – NSIPS AND MAJOR APPLICATIONS, ESSEX COUNTY COUNCIL
Location: Chelmsford, Essex
The job: “The planning technician primarily supports the role of the Council as a statutory consultee in the Planning Act 2008 process for Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) and, where appropriate, the master planning and statutory planning application process. The role has Essex-wide responsibility and undertakes communications with internal/external stakeholders to facilitate and support the interpretation and implementation of planning policy, and ECC’s single, corporate response approach, for NSIPs and large-scale and complex planning applications.
“The role recommends and implements proposals to enhance service delivery and performance by providing technical, graphic and illustrative support to professional planning staff with NSIPs, garden communities and strategic proposals. The role also will support development of Essex County Council’s web-based and electronic consultation and case-management systems and develops customer feedback initiatives to improve service delivery.”
Fun fact: Chelmsford describes itself as the birthplace of radio on account of the the fact that Guglielmo Marconi – inventor of the first practical wireless telegraph – opened his first factory in the town in 1899 under the banner of the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company (later simply the Marconi Company).
The New Street Works factory eventually became the location for the first entertainment radio broadcasts in the United Kingdom in 1920, employing a vacuum tube transmitter and featuring opera superstar Dame Nellie Melba. The factory’s location is recalled to this day in the name of Marconi Road, which runs off New Street just outside the town centre.
In 1922, regular entertainment broadcasts began at the Marconi Research Centre at Great Baddow, outside Chelmsford. These were associated with the nascent British Broadcasting Company, a private company which operated out of the Marconi Factory. In 1926, the firm was dissolved and its assets transferred to the newly formed and non-commercial British Broadcasting Corporation.
3. PRINCIPAL PLANNING OFFICER, MERTHYR TYDFIL COUNTY BOROUGH COUNCIL
Location: Agile (but site visits required)
The job: “The post holder will undertake duties relating to the provision of services within the development control section, and will also help supervise/manage the section.
“Duties include:
- To assist the planning group leader in the efficient running of the development control section
- To process and assess planning and related applications (including minerals) in accordance with national, regional and local policies
- To liaise with and advise applicants and developers prior to the formal submission of applications
- To liaise and assist the enforcement section
- To attend and lead, as appropriate, meetings of the Council, Planning and Regulatory Committee
- To liaise with the legal division in the preparation of statements for court and where appropriate to appear as the council’s expert witness
- To co-ordinate relevant appeal work.”
Fun fact: Fashion designer and businesswoman Laura Ashley whose Romantic furnishing and clothing designs have exercised a profound influence on post-war British taste, was born in Merthyr Tydfil in 1925.
Raised in a civil service family, she was partly educated in Croydon before being evacuated back to Wales, aged 13. There she attended Aberdare Secretarial School before working as a secretary for the National Federation of Women's Institutes in London.
Here, she undertook some development work on quilting. Revisiting the craft she had learnt with her grandmother, she began designing headscarves, napkins, table mats and tea-towels which her husband Bernard printed on a machine he had designed in their attic flat.
Ashley's inspiration to start producing printed fabric came from a Women's Institute display of traditional handicrafts at the Victoria & Albert Museum. When she looked for small patches carrying Victorian designs to help her make patchworks, she found no such thing existed. Spying an opportunity, she started to print Victorian-style headscarves in 1953.
Laura Ashley's first shop was opened at 35 Maengwyn Street, Machynlleth, Montgomeryshire, in 1961. By the time of her death in 1985, the company was so successful that the Ashleys could afford a yacht, a private plane, the French Château de Remaisnil in Picardy, Rhydoldog House, a mansion near Rhaeadr, Powys, Wales, a town-house in Brussels, and the villa Contenta in Lyford Cay, New Providence, Bahamas.
In 1985, just after her 60th birthday, Laura Ashley died after a fall at her daughter's home. Two months later, the company went public in a flotation that was 34 times oversubscribed.
4. PRINCIPAL PLANNING OFFICERS (DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT) x2, PUBLICA
Location: Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
The job: “We are looking to deliver upon our exciting place shaping strategy and harness our growth potential. You will lead on high profile and challenging projects such as the Golden Valley Development (an exciting garden community development to be home of cyber central UK) and the Elms Park Development (a significant cross boundary application proposing in excess of 4,000 homes, employment uses, hotel and mix of retail/community uses), as well as looking at innovative ways of delivering positive climate friendly developments.
“We need experienced and innovative principal planning officers to help lead and make a difference in delivering quality and sustainable outcomes through these and a range of other proposals.
“You will manage your own caseload of planning applications, pre-application enquiries, planning appeals, and other related activities, whilst supporting the small planning team of case officers.”
One position is permanent, the other a one year contract with potential to extend.
Fun fact: Polar explorer Edward Wilson – a member of Robert Scott’s ill-fated 1912 Antarctic expedition – was born in Cheltenham in 1872. In addition to being an explorer, he was noted as an ornithologist, naturalist, physician and artist.
Having obtained a first-class degree in natural sciences from Cambridge he studied medicine while undertaking missionary work in the slums of Battersea in London. From 1901 to 1904, Wilson acted as junior surgeon, zoologist and expedition artist for Scott's Discovery Expedition. This got closer to the South Pole than anyone had previously managed.
In 1910, he was a member of Scott’s Terra Nova expedition that actually reached the South Pole in January 1912, only to find that the Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten them to it by five weeks. The treacherous journey back to base camp, accompanied by terrible weather, malnutrition and exhaustion, took the lives of the entire expedition crew.
Throughout his career as a physician and explorer, Wilson continued to draw and paint, and his artwork appears in several museum collections. The largest collection is held at the Scott Polar Research Institute, part of the University of Cambridge, which cares for more 200 of his watercolours of British birds, as well as another 150 paintings made in Antarctica.
5. ENQUIRIES AND ASSISTANT PLANNING OFFICER, SOUTH OXFORDSHIRE AND VALE OF WHITE HORSE DISTRICT COUNCILS
Location: Abingdon, Oxfordshire
The job: "An opportunity has arisen for a dynamic and enthusiastic candidate with a keen interest in planning with knowledge and ideally experience in planning policy.The role will offer a diverse and interesting range of tasks to get involved in, as well as opportunities to develop professionally.
“You will act as the primary contact for both councils for enquiries received by the planning policy team and be responsible for managing enquiries. You can expect to assist in topics or sections in the plan and evidence base, neighbourhood plans, public consultations and a wide range of other activities engaged with by the team.
“No two days will be the same, and you will have the opportunity to get involved in work that will directly benefit and help to build a better future for the residents of South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse.”
Fun fact: Bun-throwing – whereby local dignitaries toss specially made buns into market square crowds from the roof of the Abingdon County Hall Museum – is an Abingdon tradition that can be traced back to 1761.
This was when the coronation of King George III took place and the town celebrated by baking and throwing out buns to the local populace. Since then, the ritual has been repeated on 35 occasions, each associated with a special royal or national celebration.
Since 2000, bun-throwing ceremonies have commemorated the Millennium, The Golden Jubilee, the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, the Diamond Jubilee, the centenary of the end of the First World War, and the Platinum Jubilee earlier this year, where dignitaries hurled an incredible 5,000 buns into the crowd below.
These buns, which often have designs such as a crown, are fought for, hoarded and preserved by local families and visitors. The County Hall Museum even has a selection of buns from various bun-throwings throughout the years and a local café is named after the tradition with old newspaper clippings and pictures on the walls.
Photo credits | iStock; Shutterstock
