This is the second of a series of episodes being led by the oldest friend of the podcast, Paul Smith.
Paul put it to Sam Stafford that debates about the planning system in England tend, for the most part, to focus solely on the planning system in England. Planners here very seldom look to other countries for inspiration and ideas.
Paul wanted to remedy that and so in this series he is chatting with planning professionals and academics from a number of countries to find out what works well there, what works less well, and what can be learnt.
This episodes considers planning in Australia and, specifically, Sydney.
This is a conversation that Paul recorded online in July 2025 with Melissa Neighbour.
The two of them talked about the politics of Sydney’s housing crisis, gentle density, the merits of a greater than local approach to planning and the benefits and disbenefits of zonal planning. That might all sound familiar to planners in England...
Some accompanying reading.
The New South Wales Strategic Planning Toolkit
A Metropolis of Three Cities: The Greater Sydney Region Plan
Some accompanying listening.
Any other business.
50 Shades T-Shirts!
If you have listened to Episode 45 of the 50 Shades of Planning you will have heard Clive Betts say that...
'In the Netherlands planning is seen as part of the solution. In the UK, too often, planning is seen as part of the problem'.
Sam said in reply that that would look good on a t-shirt and it does. Further details can be found here.
Sam is on Bluesky and Instagram. His blog contains a link to his newsletter.
50 Shades of Planning
50 Shades of Planning is Sam Stafford’s attempt to explore the foibles of the English planning system and it's aim is to cover the breadth of the sector both in terms of topics of conversation and in terms of guests with different experiences and perspectives.
50 Shades episodes include 'Hitting The High Notes', which are a series of conversations with leading planning and property figures. The conversations take in the six milestone planning permissions or projects within a contributor’s career and for every project guests are invited to choose a piece of music that they were listening to at that time. Think Desert Island Discs, but for planners.
Sam is on Bluesky (@samuelstafford.bsky.social) and Instagram (@samuel__stafford), and his blogs can be found here: http://samuelstafford.blogspot.com (from where you can also sign up for his newsletter and buy a t-shirt).
The 50 Shades platforms are expressions of Sam's personal opinions, which may or may not represent the opinions of his past, present or future employers.
50 Shades of Planning is by planners and for planners and so if you would like to use the podcast or the YouTube channel for sharing anything you think that the sector needs to be talking about then do please feel free to get in touch with Sam via [email protected].
Why Fifty Shades? Well, planning is not a black and white endeavour. There are at least fifty shades in between....
