The Friday Five 28.06.24
It's The Friday Five, our weekly round-up of five of the best jobs currently advertised on Planner Jobs – plus a selection of place-based facts to amuse and educate. This week, opportunities in East Suffolk, Islington, Hammersmith and Fulham, the City of Doncaster and Oxfordshire.
1. MAJOR SITES AND INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGER
Location: Lowestoft NR33 0EQ or Melton, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 1RT - Flexible working arrangements
The job: “The role will involve a considerable place shaping responsibility for several new Garden Village and Garden Neighbourhood communities for up to 2000 homes. Achieving high-quality, well-designed places will be a leading responsibility alongside addressing environmental effects and mitigation, both locally and cumulatively in the district.
“As part of a Planning Leadership Group, you will act as the lead professional Planner for the delivery of allocated strategic scale sites and Garden Communities and other major applications. In addition, you will be responsible for overseeing the operation of the Community Infrastructure Levy administration, collection and spending and the Section 106 function.
“You will support the Head of Planning, Building Control and Coastal Management in delivering identified work arising from the East Suffolk Strategic Plan and associated Service Plans and strategies. You will be responsible for overseeing many of the most complex development proposals, including those that are a corporate priority, as well as providing professional support and guidance for colleagues on such cases.”
Fun fact: Held annually at Henham Park near Southwold, the Latitude Festival is a unique arts and music festival that stands out for its diverse offerings, including comedy, theatre, poetry, and literature, in addition to music. One quirky feature is the brightly painted sheep that roam the festival grounds, adding to its distinctive and playful atmosphere.
2. CAREER GRADE PLANNER (NET ZERO CARBON)
Location: Islington, London
The job: "In this role, as a Career Grade Planner with a strong focus on Net Zero Carbon and sustainability, you will help drive and deliver the aims, objectives and policies of the new adopted Local Plan. You will carry a caseload of application and pre-application proposals, while also providing assistance to residents wishing to make changes to their properties to deliver sustainability measures. You will be central in helping to drive and deliver a key part of the London Borough of Islington’s vision for 2030, within the Development Management function.
“You will become a Sustainability Development Management Specialist, helping to enhance the environmental credentials of proposed development and unblock applications which are failing to appropriately address the Local Plan sustainability policies. To that end, we will support your career development, learning and development in fields relevant to the post.
“This post is set to run for an initial fixed term of 2 years, but as this is a high profile, emerging and evolving area of Development Management, it should be viewed as an excellent career development opportunity.”
Fun fact: Apparently there’s an election soon, and it often feels like the London Borough of Islington takes up a disproportionate amount of space in the country’s political consciousness. It’s become something of a byword for champagne socialism and out-of-touch politicians, with Boris Johnson previously labelling Keir Starmer a “lefty Islington lawyer”.
The borough’s modern reputation for well-heeled liberalism belies a far more impoverished – but no less politically engaged – history. In the late Victorian period, George Gissing wrote The Nether World, highlighting the privations of poverty-stricken families in Clerkenwell. It’s an area that bred a strong sense of political radicalism. The Nether World opens near Clerkenwell Close; if you fight your way through the throngs of post-work punters at The Crown pub (and do say hello – The Planner towers are just around the corner), you can find a small memorial commemorating where Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin apparently indulged in a drink (seriously). The Marx Memorial Library still operates next door. And there are other examples of the area’s tradition of left-wing politics: the Spa Fields Riots in 1816 were caused by working-class radical Henry Hunt addressing large crowds, and political activist and revolutionary Thomas Paine lived in an Islington inn.
3. DEPUTY TEAM LEADER (SPECIALIST PPA) – DEVELOPMENT
Location: Hammersmith, London - Hybrid Working
The job: “You’ll be leading on the delivery of key strategic projects in a timely and well managed manner. With a challenging caseload of complex and major planning applications and pre-apps which includes important council direct delivery schemes and those with key stakeholders. The caseload will be largely subject to PPAs which support the delivery of wider corporate objectives for affordable housing, affordable workspace, environmental improvements and s106 contributions. Judge and assist in judging the merits of development proposals, determine planning applications and related matters within delegated powers, and evaluate and make sound recommendations on applications particularly those of a complex and controversial nature, including presentation at planning committee.”
Fun fact: Visitors of a certain vintage will look at Hammersmith & Fulham Council’s crest and think, “Hmm, haven’t I seen that somewhere before?” And they may well have done. The council’s crest was co-opted by Fulham Football Club in 1977 with elements of it surviving through various badge fashion variations through to 2001. That’s a full 24 years of club and council cooperation.
Alas, a new and pretty basic badge was introduced for the 2001-2002 season, entirely without the ship, crossed swords and shield that both organisations previously shared. The reason? Economics, in a nutshell. Full ownership of a trademark is key to getting the maximum revenue from shirt sales and other merchandising opportunities, which Fulham FC have since done. Other clubs keep their local council’s crest, or part of it, in their badge – Preston North End and Wigan Athletic spring to mind – but for Fulham, an entirely functional ‘FFC’ does the job now. Our take? It loses some of the romance of local heraldic history. Perhaps we should start a World Cup of Local Authority Crests? That wouldn’t be nerdy at all.
4. SENIOR PLANNING POLICY OFFICER (CDC)
Location: Civic Office, Doncaster - Flexible working requests considered
The job: “We are particularly interested to hear from candidates who have experience and/or an interest in minerals and waste planning policy and are very supportive of succession planning. We are seeking to recruit an appropriately experienced enthusiastic individual to be part of a strong, friendly and supportive multidisciplinary team, all of whom work hard towards developing our planning service to deliver high quality development.
“Duties will include all those related to Local Plan development, monitoring and review, including: waste (and minerals) monitoring to ensure ongoing policy effectiveness; data analysis and assisting with research and preparing evidence base documents; assisting with stakeholder engagement and consultation on draft and emerging planning policy and proposals; inputting into future development plan reviews; and, providing development management policy advice.”
Fun fact: Doncaster, the birthplace of the Mallard steam locomotive. It was designed by Sir Nigel Gresley for LNER and built in 1938.
Mallard was one of 35 A4 Pacific class locomotives designed by Gresley.
On 3 July 1938, during a series of brake tests, the garter blue steam locomotive achieved a record-breaking speed of 126mph at Stoke Bank, which is between Grantham and Peterborough. Driver Joe Duddington said Mallard ran consistently at 125mph and peaked at 126mph for approximately a quarter of a mile.
In 1938 LNER and Gresley were only prepared to publicise a record of 125mph – which did beat the previous steam record of 114mph, with non-steam locomotives already achieving greater speeds. The world speed record plaque, which records the speed as 126mph, was put on the locomotive in 1948, after Gresley’s death in 1941.
Mallard retired from service in 1963. In 1964 it was preserved by the British Transport Commission. It went to this news editor’s favourite museum, the National Railway Museum, in York in 1975. It was restored to working order between 1982 and 1988 and completed a limited number of runs until 1989.
The remaining six A4 Pacific were reunited at the National Railway Museum in 2013 – the Christmas I saw it – to celebrate Mallard's 75th anniversary of its speed record.
5. TECHNICAL LEAD - PLANNING AND CLIMATE
Location: Blend of home working and County Hall, Oxford OX1 1ND
The job: “As a Climate and Planning Technical Lead you will be working with national and local government authorities, key stakeholders and partner organisations to help deliver the council’s climate objectives through Planning. You will lead on and develop projects and initiatives to support the delivery of net-zero development.
“You need drive and ambition, coupled with a good understanding of the planning system or the ability to navigate it, to help embed innovative climate change policy, and work closely with district planning authorities and developers to secure exemplar net-zero developments.
“We are seeking a highly motivated, enthusiastic person with proven experience in climate action and planning within a local government setting. The successful candidate will have strong project management skills, excellent stakeholder engagement and partnership working abilities, and a forward-thinking mindset.”
Fun fact: When we think of Oxfordshire, most of us probably dwell on the world’s number-one rated university and all the wonderful brains it has given us since about 1167, when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. Of course, in 1780 it also spawned the notorious Bullingdon Club (yes, Boris Johnson was one of this boisterous bunch), a private all-male student dining club. The university does not recognise it now, as in the past proctors suspended it for recurrent rowdiness.
The county also is reputedly the farthest location from the sea, yet has various rivers and canals for boating activities – and the university’s student periodicals past and present have echoed this, with titles such as Isis Magazine, Cherwell, and Tributary. Bucking this trend, Magdalen College student Ian Hislop edited satirical magazine Passing Wind, and was later snapped up by Private Eye.
Until recently a lesser-known ‘fact’ about the county is that pigs outnumber people there. This went nationwide a few years ago when a contestant on the BBC TV show The Apprentice tried to use it to entice tourists there. Most recent population figures show there are 740,300 residents (Office for National Statistics, 2022), and in 2014 according to former Oxfordshire County Councillor Ian Hudspeth, there were just 800,000 pigs.
The county even has its own type of pig, the Oxford Sandy and Black with sandy brown hair and big black spots, thought to have originated in the Thames Valley. This breed is also known as the Plum Pudding or Oxford Forest Pig because in the wild or on small-holdings in the past they would spend the autumn foraging beneath the trees and fattening up on acorns.
Image credits | iStock, Tom Meaker Shutterstock, Eric Isselee shutterstock, Cosmin Iftode Shutterstock