The Friday Five 28.10.22
1. PRINCIPAL PLANNING OFFICER, SURREY COUNTY COUNCIL
Location: Woking, Surrey (agile/flexible)
The job: “Surrey County Council is seeking an experienced, enthusiastic planning professional to support the County Planning Service in delivering its statutory planning functions, in particular with regard to its development management functions relating to minerals and waste and the County Council's own development.
“In delivering statutory planning functions regarding minerals and waste, and Surrey County Council's own development, principal planning officers provide professional planning advice to commercial companies, planning consultants, other Surrey County Council officers, county councillors, and the Surrey public. You will liaise with statutory consultees and the applicants on aspects of a planning application and respond positively and effectively to queries from the public.
"The role will involve:
- Assessing proposals in light of planning policy
- Making recommendations on proposals
- Assisting on planning enforcement cases
- Representing the planning authority as an expert witness
- Preparing representations for appeals.”
Fun fact: Woking houses the first purpose-built crematorium in the UK. Back in 1878 – at a time when cremation was actually illegal – Queen Victoria’s physician Sir Henry Thompson bought a plot of land in Woking with the aim of building a crematorium. He was at the time the president of the Cremation Society of Great Britain.
The choice of location was influenced by the site having been part of Brookwood Cemetery – the largest cemetery in the UK, built to meet the needs of London.
Thompson commissioned Italian professor Paolo Gorini to construct the first cremator and it was successfully tested on the body of a horse. In 1884, Parliament legalised cremation and the first human cremation in Woking took place on 26 March 1885.
Notable people to have been cremated in Woking include: the poet Thomas Hardy; political philosopher Friedrich Engels; computer scientist Alan Turing; Status Quo guitarist Rick Parfitt; Eleanor Marx, daughter of Karl; and social reformer Beatrice Webb.
2. PLANNING OFFICER (DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT), WORCESTER CITY COUNCIL
Location: Worcester, Worcestershire
The job: "We are looking for an enthusiastic and experienced planner to join our busy development management team, someone that can effectively manage their own caseload and evaluate, assess, negotiate and report on a varied caseload of applications, as well as carrying out some validation assessment, engaging in pre-application negotiations, post-decision determination work and defending the council’s decisions at appeal, mostly by written representation but also hearings.
“As an experienced planning officer, you will need to have excellent communication skills, an appreciation of high-quality design particularly in an urban context and be able to provide high quality advice and written reports to council committees, elected members and other stakeholders.”
Fun fact: For more than a century, Worcester was synonymous with glovemaking and was the centre of the UK’s glove manufacturing industry. Indeed, between 1790 and 1820, 150 Worcestershire glovemakers employed around 30,000 people – half of all people employed in glovemaking in the UK.
The industry began to decline in the 19th century as import taxes on foreign competitors were reduced. By the mid 20th century, as gloves themselves became less fashionable, just a few Worcester glovemakers remained. Three are known to have survived into the late 20th century: Dent Allcroft, Fownes and Milore.
Dents was actually founded in 1777, close to the peak of the glovemaking boom and its size enabled it to survive the tribulations of the industry. And even out-compete continental competitors.
Dents provided gloves to Queen Victoria, Lord Nelson, Dior, Queen Elizabeth II (coronation gloves) and, in film, for James Bond and Batman. The company has now relocated to Wiltshire.
According to one source, the last surviving glover in Worcester itself was Alwyn Gloves, founded by Les Winfield in 1963. Among his customers were Margaret Thatcher and Prince Philip. Les died in 2015, bringing an era to an end.
3. TOWN PLANNER (SENIOR), IRONSIDE FARRAR LTD
Location: Edinburgh
The job: “Ironside Farrar are looking for an ambitious town planner to join our team, based in Edinburgh. The role offers the opportunity for a qualified planner to take the next step in their career as part of a team delivering projects across Scotland.
“The successful candidate is likely to have 2-5+ years experience, and ability to contribute as a senior town planner to a range of planning consultancy services to public and private sector clients. The role requires a planner with a positive and proactive approach, that can operate as a senior planner within the team and support the development and implementation of planning strategies and coordination of planning applications, collaborate with staff at all levels, and communicate effectively with clients and stakeholders.
“Ironside Farrar Ltd. is an award winning multi-disciplinary consultancy providing services across development planning, environment, landscape, and engineering.”
Fun fact: The group of annual cultural festivals known collectively as the Edinburgh Festival can trace their origins back to the first Edinburgh International Festival and its accompanying Festival Fringe in 1947. The International Festival, intended to enrich the human spirit after the losses of war, is devoted largely to classical music, drama, ballet and visual arts.
In the meantime, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival has grown into the world’s largest arts and media festival, on a scale that is only surpassed by the football World Cup and the Olympic Games. It’s huge – and open access, meaning there is no selection panel and absolutely anyone can participate with any kind of performance. Hence, perhaps, its popularity – although almost a third of performers are comedians.
Other festivals occur in tandem with these two each August, including: the International Book Festival, the Art Festival, the International Television Festival and Edinburgh Mela.
To give an idea of scale, in 2017 The Fringe Festival alone sold 2,696,884 tickets for 53,232 performances of 3,398 shows.
4. PRINCIPAL PLANNING OFFICER (CHESTERFIELD BOROUGH COUNCIL)
Location: Chesterfield, Derbyshire
The job: “Chesterfield is a great place to live, work and play, with a proud heritage, significant ambitions for the future of its communities and the gateway town to the Peak District National Park. We are centrally located with excellent transport connectivity.
“You will be providing professional advice to elected members, the public, applicants and their agents on complex and major planning applications. Duties also include managing the enforcement of planning control and acting where appropriate as deputy to the development management and conservation manager in the management of the section and the development management service.
“Up-to-date knowledge of relevant law, policies, working practices and procedures is required as well as strong negotiation, decision making and judgement skills. A thorough understanding of the economic and social background to the developing environment and a willingness to provide a high-quality service to customers are essential alongside experience of managing staff.”
Fun fact: Among Chesterfield’s famous places is an old, old pub called the Cock and Pynot where, apparently, the 1688 Glorious Revolution was planned (the Glorious Revolution is the one that bloodlessly overthrew the Catholic King James II and installed his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange as Queen and King respectively.
This is all very interesting and important, of course, but wait – Cock and Pynot?? PYNOT? What the hell is a pynot?
It turns out that a pynot is a magpie. Pynot is actually a local dialect word for the bird. And the local dialect (now, sadly, in decline) is a rich source of wonderful words describing everything from wasps (wobbies) to Brussels sprouts (collywobbles).
We haven't been able to find a specifically Chesterfield dialect glossary but we have found this Derbyshire one which is great and also shows the extent to which dialect words have crept into common colloquial speech over time. Here you can find ‘clobber’ for clothes; ‘chops’ for cheeks; ‘gammy’ for injured’ and many more.
5. PLANNING ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, LANCASTER CITY COUNCIL
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire
The job: “Lancaster City Council is looking for suitable candidates to join its planning enforcement team as planning enforcement officers.
“The postholders will investigate breaches of planning control in accordance with the Council’s Planning Enforcement Charter. Working under the direction of the senior planning enforcement officer, the successful candidates will ideally have planning enforcement or other planning-related experience, or experience of similar enforcement/regulatory regimes.
“Good record-keeping, communication and negotiation skills, and an ability to work to tight timescales are all prerequisites of the role. We can offer a package of training support, mentoring and opportunities for hybrid working, including some homeworking and use of the City Council’s offices."
Fun fact: Morecambe is or has been home to a number of notable people (including, currently, world heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury), but few have lived as long or given as much pleasure to so many people as actress and comedian Dame Thora Hird.
Born in 1911 to a theatrical family, she first appeared on stage at just two months old. Her final performance was in 2002, at the age of 90.
In between times, Hird played more than 100 film and television roles, notably Went the Day Well? (1942 - a Second World War propaganda film), The Entertainer (1960 with Laurence Olivier) and 15 years in The Last of the Summer Wine.
Latterly, she was known for her firm association with the playwright Alan Bennett, who wrote two pieces for Hird in his Talking Heads series
of monologues about the lives of ordinary people. Both performances earned her a Bafta Award, in 1988 and 1998.
By the time of her death in 2003, she was regarded as something of a national institution. Her memorial service, at Westminster Abbey, was attended by more than 2,000 people.
Images | iStockx4; Master1305, Shutterstock
