West Midlands, England, United Kingdom
An accomplished and high achieving professional, with compelling success working in the housing and planning sectors involved in Administration, Policy Development, Development Management, identifying trends and working in cross-functional teams. Competent in supporting operations and driving performance. Proven track record of successfully coordinating administration activities, scheduling, delivering training and maintaining targets. An influential team player that can motivate, educate and bridge the gap to achieve results by building long-term and mutually beneficial internal & external stakeholder relationships. Excellent communication, numerical and analytical skills, with a proven ability to seize opportunities, whilst building long lasting trust, and mutual respect at all levels.
• Drafting and authorising fee proposals for both existing and new clients related to planning project management, submission work, drawings preparation, and post-submission management, including negotiation and monitoring. • Monitoring projects using the planning workflow sheet to forecast income, ensure clients are invoiced for work-in-progress, and maintain sufficient cash flow for daily operations. • Using Coretime to manage time for both myself and graduate planners, ensuring 70% of hours are billable to clients, with 30% for training, development, and non-project activities. • Managing business development, sourcing new clients and projects for Corylus. • Mentoring, training, and developing graduate planners and assistants. • Collaborating with internal and external stakeholders at both County and District Council levels, like Highways, Archaeology, Minerals, and Waste to negotiate consultee objections on planning submissions. • Handling a caseload of planning projects, including householder, minor applications, residential developments (10-100 units), solar farms, renewable energy proposals, holiday letting units, barn conversions, agricultural buildings, changes of use, new housing, employment/industrial uses, and commercial extensions. • Drafting Design and Access Statements, Screening Opinion Requests, Planning Statements, Planning Reviews, and Covering Letters for clients' planning application submissions. • Submitting Appeal Statements, Statements of Case, and Statements of Common Ground for clients challenging planning decisions or conditions. • Using QGIS to produce location/block plans, red-line site plans, landscaping plans, and constraints plans. • Identifying front-loaded solutions through planning controls, including providing additional supporting information/plans, amending proposal, negotiating with planning officers and elected members, and suggesting planning conditions/restrictions and amendments to S.106 agreements.
• Determining a wide range of industrial, commercial and rural planning applications under delegated powers (including barn conversions, erection of agricultural buildings and structures, changes of use, new housing developments, new employment/industrial uses, and householder/commercial extensions) • Determining Listed Building applications in relation to Designated Grade I and Grade II Listed Heritage Assets throughout the District. • Consulting with internal and external stakeholders within both the County and District Council such as Highways, Archaeology, Minerals and Waste to ensure appropriate conditions were added into any planning permissions granted. • Working on a caseload of approximately 30 - 70 applications ranging from householder, minor applications, small major applications, discharge and variation of conditions, S.73s, prior approvals and certificates of lawfulness. • Providing a pre-application advice service including carrying out site visits, face-to-face meetings and written pre-application responses. • Identifying problems at an early stage across a range of planning applications and using my problem-solving skills and initiative to formulate effective front-loaded solutions. • Drafting reports to guide scrutiny and planning committees in relation to controversial planning matters • Drafting heads of terms for S.106 Agreements in relation to off-site phosphate mitigation solutions • Identifying relevant planning constraints when determining planning applications (such as flood risk zones and areas of archaeological interest, flight paths, conservation areas) using GIS mapping systems Notable Achievements • Assisted the Councils planning department through the challenges faced as a result of the transition of South Somerset District Council from district to unitary authority undertaken in April 2023 • Assisting the Council with developments involving phosphates and progressing of such applications
• Determining a wide range of industrial, commercial and rural planning applications under delegated powers (including barn conversions, erection of agricultural buildings and structures, changes of use, new housing developments, new employment/industrial uses, and householder/commercial extensions) • Determining Listed Building applications in relation to Designated Grade I and Grade II Listed Heritage Assets throughout the District. • Consulting with internal and external stakeholders within both the County and District Council such as Highways, Archaeology, Minerals and Waste to ensure appropriate conditions were added into any planning permissions granted. • Working on a caseload of approximately 30 - 70 applications ranging from householder, minor applications, small major applications, discharge and variation of conditions, S.73s, prior approvals and certificates of lawfulness. • Providing a pre-application advice service including carrying out site visits, face-to-face meetings and written pre-application responses. • Identifying problems at an early stage across a range of planning applications and using my problem-solving skills and initiative to formulate effective front-loaded solutions. • Drafting reports to guide scrutiny and planning committees in relation to controversial planning matters • Drafting heads of terms for S.106 Agreements in relation to off-site phosphate mitigation solutions • Identifying relevant planning constraints when determining planning applications (such as flood risk zones and areas of archaeological interest, flight paths, conservation areas) using GIS mapping systems Notable Achievements • Helped to reduce the Councils backlog significantly by determining out-of-date applications, resolving complaints for non-determinations and seeking extensions of time to help improve performance and deliver an improved service. • Assisting the Council with developments involving phosphates and progressing of such applications
• Carrying out validation and registration of Planning applications. • Determming a wide range of industrial, commercial and residential planning applications (including HMO’s, change of use, new housing developments, Ad-Hoc developments and householder/commercial extensions) • Consulting with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders such as Public Protection, Highways and Legal Services to ensure appropriate conditions were added into any planning permissions granted • Identifying problems at an early stage across a range of planning applications and planning policies and using my problem-solving skills and initiative to formulate effective solutions • Drafting reports to guide scrutiny and planning committees in relation to controversial planning matters (such as Houses in Multiple Occupation and new residential dwellings on previous industrial sites with possible contamination issues) Notable Achievements • Helped to reduce the Councils backlog significantly by determining out-of-date applications, resolving complaints for non-determinations and seeking extensions of time to help improve performance and deliver an improved service. • Exercising sound planning judgement to make legally and policy compliant and balanced decisions on a varied case load of rural and urban planning applications submitted to Stoke-City-Council.
Duties • Determining a wide range of industrial, commercial and rural planning applications including barn conversions, erection of agricultural buildings and structures, changes of use, new housing developments, new employment/industrial uses, and householder/commercial extensions • Determining a significant amount of Listed Building applications in relation to Grade I and Grade II listed Heritage Assets • Consulting with internal and external stakeholders such as Highways, Archaeology, Minerals and Waste to ensure appropriate conditions were added into any planning permissions granted. • Working on a caseload of 70 plus applications including minor applications to small major applications (such as 20 dwellings) including discharge of conditions, variation of conditions, prior approvals and applications for certificates of lawfulness. • Providing a pre-application advice service including carrying out site visits, face-to-face meetings and written pre-application responses. • Identifying problems at an early stage across a range of planning applications and planning policies and using my problem-solving skills and initiative to formulate effective solutions Drafting reports to guide scrutiny and planning committees in relation to controversial planning matters (including new housing developments in satellite rural villages or conservation areas) Identifying relevant planning constraints when determining planning applications (including flood risk zones and areas of archaeological interest, flight paths, conservation areas) using GIS mapping systems Notable Achievements • Reduced the Council's backlog by determining out-of-date applications, resolving complaints for non-determinations and seeking extensions of time to help improve performance and deliver an improved service. • Exercised sound planning judgement by making legally and policy compliant and balanced decisions on a varied case load of rural and urban planning applications