Weeknotes S4, Eps 6 Planning Derision and Development Days

Nothing spectacular this week but just a couple of reflections that stick out.

It’s been a fairly miserable week weather-wise. I’m very attuned to the weather I am I think I’m probably the biggest sufferer of SAD syndrome ever… so these longer nights, darker days and the colder weather just makes me dream of sitting in the garden (con la birra) in the beautiful hot sunshine in the summer :-)

Hey Ho… I do like a good open fire and glass of wine by it, so not all is lost.

One

Quite a week this week after the full on start of consultation for the GCLocalPlan and a number of webinars and conferences that I’ve been in attendance which were fairly bunched up at the start of November.

The webinar theme continue this week on Wednesday with our climate change and net zero webinar. We had a fantastic panel assembled including our consultants who helped formulate the zero carbon study; Bioregional and Etude and also our integrated water management study consultants Stantec.

Net zero in the context of plan making is a really new and incredibly interesting area with huge interest from both our communities and at a national and professional level. If I’m honest, I was a little surprised that only a small number of people made it to the actual webinar although I’m hoping it was down to the timing as it was a 5:00 pm start (although ironically we chose this time as it was outside traditional work hours to give more people opportunity to attend) :-). I think it was our smallest audience yet as we’ve had far larger numbers for the previous strategy and jobs and homes sessions. However there were about 25 to 30 people who engaged really constructively and it was recorded so those people who couldn’t make it for any reason please do go and catch a listen. There is some incredibly interesting stuff and Bioregional provided a fantastic slide deck (keep an eye on the website next week as these will be published) which is really helpful in explaining some of the complex methodologies that they used to calculate some of the policy frameworks.

Two

Another high point this week was our regular team virtual development day. This was a whole planning service team event and its always good to meet new people or catch up with those we don’t get to see as much in our virtual ‘caves’ of recent months.

We are big team; over 105 attended the zoom, and it was so well organised by colleagues Jane, Will and others as well so thank you immensely. We were also joined at the end by both of our Chief Executives; Robert from Cambridge City and Liz from South Cambs who gave us some incredibly interesting back stories from their previous worlds… It felt very human and they are both great people as well as super leaders. So many chief executives can be too far removed from their services and Greater Cambridge is lucky to have leadership that is beginning to removes hierarchies and makes people feel like one team. Also the event was hat themed so there was a serious array of awesome headwear — well done to all for making the effort.

Three

Apart from this I had a little bit of a chance to catch up on a few bits and do some inbox spring/autumn cleaning (which has got a bit monstrous over the last few weeks of content production for consultation) Also trying to get my head around the next bit of digital work which was running a QA panel for prospective suppliers to partner up with and deliver our #Proptech discovery pilot . Also the EOI for the continuing Local Government Digital Fund on RIPA and BOPS dropped this week and really exciting to see how much traction and progress is being made in this critical area.

Mixed end to the week as everyone in the team is so fatigued by the last few months of plan making, committees and consultation, planning especially in local government is really far too often an unloved area discipline. We get that sometimes we don’t always get it right I(who does?), but moreover its the fact that planning is always emotive and sensitive and with a discretionary system such as ours you will always have disagreement and there will always be mixed views. This is fine but be respectful and constructive. Planners (certainly most that I know are only interested in creating better places, they work in difficult complex systems in which they don’t fully control many of the interactions and critical pathways). I can’t tell you how many times I am having to pick people up (myself included) after doing back to back 60 hr weeks to meet deadlines only to get (at best, no thanks, at worse derisive comments about professionality or judgement, tears shouldn’t be as regular an occurrence in teams as is sometimes the case :-(). The super Catriona and Pooja mentioned this in a tweet I saw yesterday trying to get the following hashtag trending so it seems apt to spread the word.

#BeNiceToPlanners

Anyway folks…

Happy weekend to you all X