đ đ»The 50 Shades of Planning Festive Christmas Quizđ
- E10
- 48:18
- December 13th 2019
Full of festive cheer (and sherry), Sam Stafford quizzes Greg Dickson, Paul Smith, David Diggle, Andrew Jalali, Vicky Payne and Tom Whitehead on some of the stories that have caught the eye in 2019. Expect an attempt at humour at the start, an appearance from a very special guest at the end and some bad cracker jokes in between...
For those interested in the topics that are discussed there is some reading here:
January
Mr Brokenshireâs big intervention stick.
http://samuelstafford.blogspot.com/2018/08/mr-brokenshires-big-intervention-stick.html
February
Portsmouth council plans to reclaim land from sea for homes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-47142979
March
The latest act in the GMSF play.
http://samuelstafford.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-latest-installment-in-long-running.html
MHCLGâs resourcing and skills survey.
https://local.gov.uk/pas/pas-topics/monitoring/survey-planning-departments-2019
April
In memory of the Englishman who kept a shark on his roof.
May
The National Audit Officeâs investigation into the governmentâs land disposal strategy and programmes.
https://www.nao.org.uk/report/investigation-into-the-governments-land-disposal-strategy/
 June
 Juries for plan-making.
July
Record temperatures across Europe.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49108847
August
The Towns Fund.
September
Robert Jenrick likes tree-lined streets.
October
The CPRE likes Green Belt.
November
Government confirms fracking moratorium and drops proposed permitted development rights.
December
How does your garden grow?
50 Shades of Planning
50 Shades of Planning is Sam Staffordâs 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 contributorâs 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.
50 Shades episode also include the 'All Around the World' series, which is being led by friend of the podcast, Paul Smith.
Paul put it to Sam 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 chats 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.
Sam is on Bluesky and Instagram, and his blogs can be found here (from where you can also sign up for his newsletter).
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, town and country planning is very much not a black and white endeavour. There are at least fifty shades in between....
