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Join us as we celebrate 20 years of the Planning Advisory Service at our special anniversary conference in Birmingham on 27/28 February 2025.
This milestone event is for local authority chief planning officers and offers an invaluable opportunity to explore the latest government changes shaping planning services, including a revised National Planning Policy Framework.
The conference will be delivered in partnership with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and guests from the local government and private sector. Click here for more information and to book your place.
Pathways to Planning is the amazing graduate recruitment programme which offers councils an affordable and reliable way to attract and retain new planners. The programme covers all marketing and recruitment costs, and additionally offers a bursary to facilitate the graduates’ postgraduate study and MRTPI accreditation. Pathways to Planning launched in September 2023 and has delivered more than 80 new planners in almost 60 different local authorities.
Councils can sign up now to take part, hiring graduates to start work in September 2025.
If you are interested in the programme but are unsure of how it would work for you, just register their interest in our next intake and the team will get in touch with more information. For more information or to request an individual call, please contact Pathways.Planning@local.gov.uk
We are looking for experienced Planning Managers who we can train to become Planning Peer Review Managers. Ideally, we are looking for people who have worked with PAS on Peer Reviews as an Officer Peer, enjoy the peer review process and have the time to lead peer teams - for example if you have recently retired from a council. If this interests you please let us know by contacting pas@local.gov.uk
We are looking to form nine regional local authority networks to share experiences and help tailor support around design. Following the recent announcement regarding the closure of Office for Place, this programme of work will continue with MHCLG support.We want a local authority urban designer or planner, with an active interest in design and a desire to learn and share experiences between LPAs to be a 'Design Advocate' in each region.
We will work with selected 'Advocates' with some direct financial support and ongoing advice to deliver a network in each region.
If you and your authority would be interested and like more information please go to the PAS website, or contact us at pas@local.gov.uk
On 7 November, West of England Combined Authority published their West of England Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS). This is the first of 48 LNRSs that are being prepared by responsible authorities across England, in collaboration with local communities, landowners and delivery partners. Each LNRS will identify local priorities for nature recovery and the wider environment and map actions for achieving these priorities locally. LNRSs will help local areas to target biodiversity net gain, align funding around nature recovery priorities in their area, and be a consideration for public bodies when carrying out their activities. You can find out more at this recent blog from Defra.
PAS is launching a project to discover what a modern & effective Planning Committee looks like and ultimately create some tools & resources for councils to use. To kick off the project we want to gather information and generate a national picture of how Planning Committees are currently operating. To do this we would like as many councils as possible to complete our survey.
PAS hosts a network for local authority officers interested in nature recovery and Protected Sites Strategies to:
- Keep them informed on the development of the national PSS programme
- Help PAS design PSS guidance for LPAs
- Provide a discussion forum on PSS and wider nature recovery
- Share case studies of good practice of process and application
We host an online discussion forum & run events & training. Please fill out this Microsoft form if you are a local authority officer and would like to join.
Protected Sites Strategies (PSS) ‘the next big thing’ to come out of the Environment Act 2021? We discuss how the thinking & approach are developing ahead of the guidance & what part local authorities can play.
Protected Sites Strategies are on the near horizon – Planning Advisory Service
Prompted by conversations about what the future of planning looks like, our programme manager Richard Crawley wonders about how AI is going to be introduced into planning departments.
The Institute of Public Rights of Way and Access Management (IPROW) has commissioned consultants to prepare the IPROW Planning and Development Guide Best Practice Document. It is the aim that it will provide a useful resource to Rights of Way Officers, Planning Officers, Professional Consultants, Developers, Designers and Interest Groups. It will provide clarity on how the Rights of Way and the Planning Systems function, interact and have they can be mutually supportive to deliver social and environmental betterment. The document will be completed and finalised by Autumn 2025. On completion it will be freely available to all online and to download.
At the outset of the project, the consultant team is seeking input from any interested Officers or parties to help guide the content of the document and ensure that it is addressing the issues that matter in practice. A quick questionnaire is accessed here for completion online by 23rd December 2024.
Did you know that the most deprived areas of our towns and cities have on average half the tree cover of the least deprived?
If you work in the urban environment, or in public space development and want to help change that, join us for our ‘Urban Forests for All’ webinar, where we will explore ways to design and grow fairer urban forests: What's on — Nature Towns and Cities
During the event, you will:
- Hear from local authorities on how they successfully developed their urban forest strategies.
- Learn how tree equity principles can help you prioritise resources and involve communities
- Learn about new ways of funding and valuing the urban forest
- Hear how we are building on existing best practice to enable large-scale change
The partnership behind the Urban Forest Accelerator will be working with local authorities and voluntary organisations to put the lessons of the project into practice. This webinar is an opportunity to learn about our work so far, and help inform our next steps, based on your experiences.
Please complete the online survey, which takes 10-20 minutes to complete.
The closing date is 31st December 2024, and your feedback will support improvements to the usability and effectiveness of the GI Framework and highlight if further support is needed.
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