Moving on - reflecting on 3.5 years in public practice

Its quite surreal to leave a job over Teams. After 3.5 years, I left the Greater Cambridge Planning Service at Christmas, which was quite a wrench as well as the right thing to do. When I joined the service as part of the inaugural cohort of the brilliant Public Practice initiative I had no idea where that journey would take me, how long I'd feel driven to stay in the team, and the opportunities it would give me to contribute to the public good.

What have I learnt from this stint in the public sector?

A few moments stand out to me.

Passing through a new neighbourhood, which the developers call Great Kneighton but which everyone else calls Trumpington, at school-leaving time and finding the streets filled with kids of all ages freewheeling around on their bikes, not a moving car to be seen. This shouldn't feel unusual but, for a new-build district in this country, is unheard of. And later, at the Clay Farm Community Centre at the centre of the district, speaking to a number of people - many from immigrant backgrounds - who love it as a place to live and are so glad that they could find a place to live there. But who are already priced out from their next house move, as their kids need more space, and are wondering where they can afford.

At a youth club - hearing some young people express very practical ambitions, such as starting a business, alongside a hopelessness about the big picture future that was frightening. 

At Barnwell, listening to residents speak of overcrowded homes and a total frustration with how the 'system' appears to bar them from any improvement. And how this quickly turned to talk of immigrants jumping the queue.

The amount of my inbox that deals with a few people raising the same issues over and over again, and how none of those people are any of the above. Because those people don't try to get a hotline to a senior planning officer, copying in elected members, Council chief execs, other campaigners and, for good measure, a few local MPs, to ensure their voice is heard.

I've loved the work I've done, and I'm proud of having done a fair bit to demystify the process of planning to many audiences, and to get a lot more people involved in the process. But what small changes I managed to make, are paltry compared to what needs to be done.

Public planning is fascinating, thrilling, frustrating and worrying in equal measure. But the perception of legitimacy in planning is draining away daily, and the impact of this - in practical terms - is making planning nearly impossible to carry out. This self-fulfilling spiral can only be stopped by radical change in the way that planners and the public work together. We can't be fighting this stuff out through judicial reviews and examination in public - it's a hideous waste of time and money, and sucks resource out of actually doing planning well. We need a big reset, and not one that privileges the well-resourced activists against those that don't even know what planning is.

Planners in local authorities are absolutely trying their best to do the right thing. Contrary to some vocal online voices, there are no brown envelopes from developers, and things are not sewn up before the public have any chance to have their say. Public planning - at both the development management end and the plan-making end - is people trying to balance up difficult trade-offs, make good decisions, avoid legal challenge and meet the standards that both their politicians and their public demand. But it's not hard to see how it could appear very different. How do fields of new homes seem to get waved through the system while your back extension is held up for months? Why are planners meeting developers in closed pre-application discussions? Why haven't the hundreds of people who objected to that site in the new Local Plan been listened to?

From the inside, it's easy and tempting to excuse the poor performance of many planning authorities by explaining the hideous lack of funding and systematic problems they face. But there's no point crying over spilt milk here. This is the world we operate in, and if we want to change it, we need to be far bolder far quicker. 

Consultation is not a referendum. That can't be said often enough. Consultation is a chance for decision-makers to ensure they are aware of as many relevant facts and views as possible, before making a decision. It's research, fundamentally. But it doesn't mean that any of those views- regardless of how many people may voice them - have merit and deserve to change the course of that decision. That can - and does - happen, when those new facts or views clearly outweigh the previous assumptions or evidence. 

Planning is a means to legitimise the disadvantage suffered by a minority in the interests of the majority. This is always worth remembering. So we need to quickly find ways of hearing from everyone and demonstrating that legitimacy loud and proud, however uncomfortable it may be for the minority.

Our system is highly flawed. Planners try their best to get something worthwhile for the majority - say, affordable housing - with one hand tied behind their backs. Because land value is king - and also a completely artificial construct - and because we have no means to regulate who buys or rents a home, and why - we are never going to end up with true affordability.  Councils - who can make different judgements about land value and regulate who gets a home -  don't own enough land to make a difference. (And even if councils could massively increase their building programmes, Right to Buy means that council-built housing ends up as a privatised investment asset before very long.)

Planning is just one branch of policy-making and politics. My insights would - I am pretty sure - be echoed by people working in benefits, tax, trading standards or farming. How we make good policy, that has legitimacy and agility, is a major 21st century challenge and we need bold shifts.

It's the right time to move on - I've done a lot, and learnt a great deal, but I want new challenges where I continue to learn and contribute. The GCSP team is - despite all the challenges - in great shape, and I'm hugely excited to see the ambitious climate-focused Local Plan work through the next stages. I'm already enjoying not juggling two jobs - it was surprising to me how many of my colleagues thought I was a full-time GCSP planner and didn't realise I was also running HAT Projects alongside. Like so many over the last two years, I've got near to burnout at times, even with all the privileges I carry, so a refresh feels good.

What next? Well, more time for HAT - we have lots of work to do - and for a few personal projects that need to come off the back-burner. I took over as Chair of the Creative Colchester Partnership last year and I need to give that a boost of time and energy to reshape it into the support network that the local creative and digital sector needs. In due course I want to carry on contributing to the public sector, but I want to find the right role and way to do that (open to suggestions!) There are some exciting projects I'm already starting to get involved with in the planning world, and I'm curious to see where they lead.

I'm always focused on where I can have the most impact for good, however fluffy that sounds. That's why I went into architecture initially, then into regeneration and then into planning. Let's see where that journey takes me next.