The Thursday Three 28.03.24
Not The Friday Five but The Thursday Three, a subtle and alliterative variation on our weekly round-up of the best jobs currently advertised on Planner Jobs, along with a selection of fun, place-based facts to amuse and entertain. This week, opportunities in Rushcliffe, Wrexham and Cherwell. Plus the origin of Gotham City, the story of 'Iron Mad' John and Britain's biggest ordnance depot (and shopping village).
1. PLANNING MANAGER (DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT), RUSHCLIFFE BOROUGH COUNCIL
Location: West Bridgford, Nottingham
The job: "Our development management service is in a strong position to take on the challenges of government policy changes and the delivery of several strategic sites and a local development order. As our planning manager, you’ll be ready to provide effective operational management and leadership to your teams, ensuring they deliver and continually improve services in accordance with service standards.
"You'll also oversee the delivery of strategic housing and employment sites within the borough and manage the entire range of applications we receive. Your other responsibilities will include engaging effectively with internal and external customers; monitoring and controlling service performance to ensure that key milestones and targets are met; identifying and bidding for additional funding; and managing the process for applications being considered by the planning committee. You’ll also be committed to maintaining fair and consistent HR policies throughout the service."
Fun fact: We all know Gotham City, from the Batman comic strip (and movies), right? But did you also know that it's based – indirectly – on the name of the village of Gotham in Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire? You did? Oh, OK. We won’t bother with the rest of this one then.
No, wait! So, this all starts with a series of old tales about the imbecility of the people of Gotham – or, rather, the feigned imbecility. The Wise Men of Gotham stories relate that the people of Gotham faked idiocy to deter King John from travelling through their village on a visit to the region. At that time, apparently, any road travelled by the king had to be a public highway, and the good folk of Gotham did not want a public highway running through their patch.
So, when the royal messengers visited to make arrangements, the villagers feigned a collective madness. Madness at this time was considered a contagious disease, so the messengers departed forthwith and advised the king to make alternative arrangements. The story itself can be traced back as far as the 15th century; an 1874 retelling reports that “found some of the inhabitants engaged in endeavouring to drown an eel in a pool of water; some were employed in dragging carts upon a large barn, to shade the wood from the sun; others were tumbling their cheeses down a hill”.
There was even an 18th-century nursery rhyme:
Three wise men of Gotham,
They went to sea in a bowl,
And if the bowl had been stronger
My song would have been longer.
So how do we get from Gotham, Notts, to Gotham, USA? For that, you can blame the American author Washington Irving. He gave the name Gotham to New York City in his early 18th-century satirical periodical Salmagundi Papers, which lampooned New York’s culture and politics, depicting the city as something akin to a madhouse.
So when it came to name the New York-like metropolis first depicted in the Batman strip in the late 1930s, the name Gotham sprang to the minds of the characters creators. It’s since become synonymous with a kind of dark, brooding and violent urbanism teetering on the brink of madness. And it all started in a tiny village in Nottinghamshire with a modern-day population of just 1,500 souls or so. And no, they’e not mad. Well, statistically, one or two might be.
2. AREA PLANNING OFFICER X2/SENIOR PLANNING OFFICER, WREXHAM COUNTY BOROUGH COUNCIL
Location: Wrexham (Wrecsam)
The jobs:
Senior planning officer: "We're seeking to appoint a senior planning officer to our busy development management team. You'll be joining a friendly and welcoming team who will work together to deliver the best planning outcomes for our customers. The role will offer you the opportunity of dealing with dealing with broad and varied caseload, including applications for major housing and employment developments."
Area planning officers: "We're seeking to appoint two planning officers to our busy development management team. You'll be joining a friendly and welcoming team who will work together to deliver the best planning outcomes for our customers. The role will offer you the opportunity of dealing with a varied and challenging caseload and enable you to develop and broaden your planning knowledge and experience.
"To be considered for these roles, you must have a recognised qualification in planning, a related subject or equivalent experience, as well as hold a valid driving license. Membership of the RTPI would be desirable. You'll be expected to demonstrate your judgment and initiative; have excellent written and verbal communication skills; and a desire to develop your experience of delivering high quality planning outcomes. It will be essential to demonstrate your ability to work as part of a team, use initiative to problem solve and effectively manage your caseload."
Fun fact: The Industrial Revolution clanked into Wrexham in the mid-18th with the arrival of ‘Iron Mad’ John Wilkinson. Wilkinson took over the Bersham Ironworks near the city, where he developed a more reliable method of casting cannon barrels, reducing the risk of (unwanted) explosions.
It’s not just for his business interests that Wilkinson earned his moniker. He was an enormous advocate for iron – he proposed The Iron Bridge over the River Severn, for example, the first cast-iron bridge in the world. In fact, Wilkinson was so crazy for the stuff he paid to have iron windows and an iron pulpit installed into a Methodist chapel in Bradley. He had an iron desk, and a bed (no records of what his mattress was made from) and when he died, he was even buried in an iron coffin, which he had proudly displayed in his office, in the belief that it might entice customers.
Wilkinson also developed parts for Boulton and Watt steam engines, until James Watt – for whom the unit of measurement ‘Watt’ is named – discovered that Iron Mad John had been selling his own steam engines on the black market.
Almost incredibly, given the weight of an iron coffin, Wilkinson’s body was moved around various different resting places, and no one is quite sure where it is now. Presumably, no one has thought to use a novelty-sized magnet to check. There is a monument to Iron Mad Wilkinson in Lindale, in Cumbria – no prizes for guessing what it’s made from.
3. PRINCIPAL PLANNING OFFICER, CHERWELL DISTRICT COUNCIL
Location: Banbury, Oxfordshire
The job: "Cherwell District Council’s busy development management team needs bright, enthusiastic and dynamic individuals to make a difference to our planning service and to lead/take responsibility for the processing and determination of a wide variety of application types.
"With innovative and large-scale housing developments such as the country’s largest self-build community at Graven Hill, the exemplar zero-carbon development at Northwest Bicester, and the redevelopment of a former Cold War airbase, Cherwell is committed to doing things differently.
"If you're an enthusiastic and ambitious planner, and passionate about delivering well-planned sustainable communities, you could be what we’re looking for. We want customer focused people who embody our ambitions for a high quality, efficient and value for money development management service. You'll need to be a self-starter who works quickly, accurately, and flexibly."
Fun fact: Bicester, in Cherwell, is home to at least two places of note: the Bicester shopping village (beloved of Chinese tourists); and the Ministry of Defence’s largest ordnance depot, which has both its own internal railway line and a bomb disposal training base with a man-made cave complex.
The ordnance depot was built in 1942 at the height of the Second World War. At the same time the 40-mile-long Bicester Military Railway was constructed to transport ordnance from depots at Bicester, Paddington and Arncott to the Oxford to Bicester line, and thus beyond. Unsurprisingly, the line was used extensively during the war, in particular in the preparations for D-Day.
It was considered so important that Prime Minister Harold Wilson (1963-1976) instructed Richard Beeching to spare the line from cuts during his infamous railway review of the early 1960s.
The Bicester Military Railway is the main home for 275 Railway Squadron, whose members are known by other regiments in the Royal Logistic Corps as – what else? – The Railway Children. Every soldier in the unit is able to drive a locomotive, operate railway signals, shunt and build track.
As for the bomb disposal training base, more properly titled the Defence Explosive Ordnance Disposal, Munitions and Search School, this apparently has a cave complex, a dive pool and roadway, and was built at a cost of £100 million in 2012.
Image credits | Dan Jamieson, Shutterstock; Paul Daniels, Shutterstock; Ivan Kruk, Shutterstock
