The Friday Five 26.01.24
It's The Friday Five, our weekly selection of five of the best town planning jobs advertised on Planner Jobs – along with some entertaining, amusing and/or merely informative place-based facts. This week, opportunities in Bradford, Calderdale, Newark and Sherwood, the Cairngorms and Rugby. Plus the story of the UK's first school meal, the interrupted construction of a famous town hall, the legend of Sherwood, and Britain's sole native bird.
1. SENIOR PLANNING OFFICER, CITY OF BRADFORD METROPOLITAN BOROUGH COUNCIL
Location: Bradford, West Yorkshire
The job: "As senior planning officer, you'll join a team of professionals leading on the preparation, implementation and monitoring of the local plan. This will build on the already adopted local plan documents to put in place an up-to-date comprehensive plan which supports the district’s clean growth ambitions, including transformational opportunities such as Northern Powerhouse Rail.
"Current key projects include:
- Local plan work to publication and submission
- Monitoring land supply and delivery
- Neighbourhood planning and duty to cooperate
- Supporting regeneration and masterplanning
"Bradford and its district is an award winning cultural destination and one of the youngest, most vibrant places in the country. Combine a UNESCO City of Film and Salts Mill World Heritage Site with wild and beautiful moorland, throw in world class artists such as David Hockney, and literary greats such as the Brontës, coupled with a city packed with a rich and varied mix of cultures and heritages and you have Bradford."
Fun fact: No doubt we've all poked fun at some point at the school dinners we were served up as kids – lumpy banana custard anyone? Sickly semolina? That weird egg-and-bacon flan thing? Undercooked potatoes?
Imagine, then, what it must have been like in the days before school dinners, when most kids were likely to have nothing at all for lunch – and likely nothing for breakfast either.
When did it change? And where? Well, we can put a date and location on it: Bradford served the first state-funded school meals to children in its schools in 1907. Up to this point, any meals received by children in state-run schools were provided by charity or Poor Law Guardians, who also ran workhouses. But in 1906 Parliament passed a new law, The Education (Provision of Meals) Act, which allowed councils to feed kids in their schools. Bradford Council, pushed on by local MP Fred Jowett, was the first authority to implement it.
According to the Bradford Science and Media Museum website, the process began with a feeding experiment to "scientifically establish what benefits school feeding could provide for ‘Necessitous Children’". The first school kitchen was set up at the city's Green Lane School and Bradford became famed for its programme, inspiring similar schemes across the country.
So now you know who to blame...
2. PRINCIPAL PLANNING ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, CALDERDALE COUNCIL
Location: Calderdale, West Yorkshire/Hybrid
The job: "If you’re looking for a challenging and varied role in a busy development management team, we’d like to hear from you. It’s a very exciting time to join the council, with a newly adopted local plan and an ambitious capital programme.
"We're looking for a principal planning enforcement officer to assist the team in delivering an effective and efficient planning enforcement service. This is a fantastic opportunity for an individual who is looking to play a pivotal role.
"As part of this role, you will investigate enforcement complaints, including the most complex and sensitive cases, issue notices and lead on prosecutions where necessary, and assist the team leader with management and mentoring of the team.
"Calderdale is a beautiful area in West Yorkshire, conveniently located between Leeds and Manchester, with unique natural landscapes, vibrant towns, a thriving cultural and arts scene and diverse and resilient communities."
Fun fact: Calderdale Borough Council’s offices are in Halifax’s impressive Classical style town hall. Completed in 1863, the town hall's design was supposed to have been settled through a competition. The council asked Charles Barry, architect of the Houses of Parliament, to judge; but Barry didn’t really enter into the spirit of the competition and rejected all three entries.
The council (possibly a little exasperated at this point) asked Barry himself to offer a design, which was accepted. Barry, however, rudely died in 1860 before his work was finished, posing something of a logistical problem. Fortunately, his son, Edward Middleton Barry, was able to complete the design.
Also in Halifax is the Cloth Hall, the only remaining Georgian cloth hall in the world, and described on its website as the “most important secular building in Yorkshire”. It’s certainly a striking building, with its enormous central piazza.
Halifax is far from the only interesting town in the borough, however. The borough takes its name from the River Calder, which many of the area’s settlements sit alongside: Hebden Bridge, Sowerby Bridge and Brighouse ('Bridge House') all take their names from their respective bridges over the river.
3. PLANNER – DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT, NEWARK AND SHERWOOD DISTRICT COUNCIL (24 MONTH CONTRACT)
Location: Newark, Nottinghamshire/Hybrid
The job: "We’re looking for a qualified and experienced planning officer to work across the council’s planning department, dealing with a full range of activities, including pre-application enquiries, applications and appeals within a district with a diverse range of planning issues.
"Geographically, Newark and Sherwood is the largest district in Nottinghamshire, incorporating the centres of Newark, Southwell and Ollerton, together with large rural areas. The planning department deals with schemes ranging from large urban extensions (3,000 houses and associated infrastructure), employment and retail developments, flood risk issues, schemes for Gypsy and Traveller provision and protecting the area’s important heritage.
"The council is a dynamic, progressive, planning authority, with the first core strategy and allocations DPDs in Nottinghamshire, the first Community Infrastructure Levy in England, and a programme to deliver growth in the context of a fantastic historic and natural environment."
Fun fact: Sherwood is a large district in the city of Nottingham, with about 15,414 residents, many working in modern sectors such as logistics, data management, property and construction, and environmental and health industries (Boots the Chemist was founded there, of course). The name, first recorded as ‘Sciryuda’ in the 10th century, means ‘wood belonging to the Shire’.
But mention Sherwood and most people will immediately think of heroic outlaw Robin Hood – played by at least 30 actors in movies and TV, from Errol Flynn to Kevin Costner.
The Sherwood rainforest, a tourist attraction to this day, was reputedly the home of Robin and his Merry Men, who supposedly robbed the rich and gave to the poor. They are said to have hidden in these woods from the Sheriff of Nottingham’s troops, sleeping inside a giant hollow tree, the Major Oak – a large English oak (Quercus robur) near the village of Edwinstowe amid hundreds of ancient oaks for more than 500 years.
The character has been an enduring one. Legions of writers and balladeers over the ages have invoked his legend – the earliest reference being in William Langland’s 1370s poem Piers Plowman. Even Shakespeare references him in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, through the character Valentine, who is driven out of Milan into a forest where he is adopted as a leader by outlaws.
But most historians have concurred on the origin theory that the swashbuckling character is an invented, archetypical hero, and that ‘Robin Hood’ was a common alias used by or about bandits. Robin (or Robert) Hood (aka Hod or Hude) was a nickname given to petty felons from the mid-13th century – Robin – ‘robbing’ – geddit?
4. SENIOR PLANNING OFFICER (DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT), CAIRNGORMS NATIONAL PARK AUTHORITY
Location: Grantown-on-Spey, Moray
The job: "As the senior planning officer (development management), you'll take responsibility for processing planning casework and providing planning advice on potential developments in the National Park while undertaking work across the functions of the planning service, including development management, monitoring and enforcement, and development planning.
"You'll lead the 'grow your own' graduate planner programme and may be required to line manage planning staff. In the role you' ll manage your portfolio of caseload to deliver decisions within the Park Authority’s service standards while time managing your wider range of contributions to the team’s and wider services work.
"The Cairngorms National Park is the largest national park in the UK, covering 4500km2. It is also a place of sheer abundance, having more high mountain ground than anywhere else in the UK, the largest Caledonian forest, some of Scotland’s purest rivers and finest livestock rearing farmland. It's home to 25 per cent of the UK’s rare and endangered species. It's a truly unique place to work, with our dedicated and passionate Planning team who are committed to delivering a high quality planning service, every day. Furthermore, there is access to some of the most beautiful countryside straight from our headquarters office door."
Fun fact: The Cairngorms National Park is the largest national park in the UK and one of its most important sanctuaries for nature. Almost half the park is considered 'wild land', it houses the UK's biggest rewilding scheme and its forests, mountains, rivers and lochs are home to a remarkable 25 per cent our threatened animal, insect, fungi and plant species. Some of these species can only be found in the Cairngorms.
The animals for which the park provides a vital sanctuary include capercaillie, pine marten, osprey, Scottish wildcat, golden eagle, red squirrel, snow bunting, lapwing, crested tit, dotterel and black grouse. Then there’s the wonderful Scottish crossbill, the one bird species found only in the UK and nowhere else in the world.
Its range is heavily localised, and it's found only in the Cairngorms and a few other pockets of the northern Highlands. This may be partly to do with the bird's diet, which consists almost solely of seeds from pine cones. Such is their dependence on these as a source of food that crossbills have evolved a highly specialised bill (the cross bill) that enables them to remove the seeds with ease.
The Scottish Crossbill was only officially recognised as a unique species in 2006. Up to that point it was considered a variant of either a red crossbill or a parrot crossbill (and it's easy to see the likeness to a small parrot). But it was eventually confirmed as a separate species on the basis of its unique song and calls and the fact that it's reproductively isolated form populations of red and parrot crossbills. It's even been said to sing with a Scottish accent. We'll pass on that one.
Anyhow, it's a threatened species and the British Trust for Ornithology thinks it could well be at risk of extinction because of loss of habitat. A good place to see one, should you find yourself in the Highlands, is at the Loch Garten Nature Reserve just a few miles down the road from the national park's HQ at Grantown-on-Spey. You might also see otters, osprey and red squirrels!
5. CIL AND LOCAL PLAN MONITORING OFFICER, RUGBY BOROUGH COUNCIL
Location: Rugby, Warwickshire/Hybrid
The job: "Rugby BC is introducing the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and the successful candidate will lead on administering CIL and monitoring development in the borough. You'll need be organised, numerate and familiar with using data and evidence.
"Rugby borough is one of the fastest growing local authorities in the country. We are seeking an enthusiastic and skilled CIL and local plan monitoring officer to work as part of our friendly and pro-active development strategy team.
"Located in the county of Warwickshire, near the cities of Coventry and Leicester, with direct rail links to London and Birmingham and within 'the golden triangle' of the strategic road network, Rugby is a great place to live and work."
Fun fact: Rugby - the birthplace of rugby! Because, of course, all sports are named after the place in which they originated - which is why, when the summer comes around, we all grab our racquets and head to the grass courts for a few sets of Edgbaston. (True fact…)
Spare a thought , though, for Rugby’s footballers. By which I mean the Warwickshire town of Rugby’s players of association football, not the Warwickshire town of Rugby’s players of Rugby football. (Do keep up.)
Because in fact, Rugby has in fact had its own ‘proper’ football club since the 1940s. Rugby Town FC is nicknamed the Valley, and when named Valley Sports (VS) Rugby, the Northern Premier League Division One Midlands club were known to play some of the country’s leading non-league lights, such as – oh, let’s pick one entirely at random – Wealdstone FC.
Rugby Town’s list of past managers reads like a roll call of the most stereotypical football manager names of all time (Jimmy Knox, Mick Martin, Billy Jeffrey, Tony Dobson, Gary Mills…). Whisper it, but some bloke called Jürgen Klopp has just revealed to us how much he’s looking forward to taking ‘The Valley’ to the next level.
Image credits | Highwaystarz Photography, iStock; JennyT, Shutterstock; Phillip George Jones, Shutterstock; Ellen Thornell, Shutterstock; Nadezhda Kurbatova, iStock
