RTPI South East - Royal Town Planning Institute

RTPI South East

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RTPI Annual Review 2017 RTPI South East

Advancing the Science and Art of Planning

Chair’s Foreword. A thriving RTPI Region: RTPI South East is a large, diverse and active member of the RTPI Regions family. We have a committed group of volunteers who have worked hard throughout 2017 to deliver another annual programme of high quality CPD training and other events to our members. These include the highly acclaimed Brighton Rock and Planning Futures Lectures and the ever-popular Spring and Autumn Legal Updates. Following the success of our 2016 Awards event up the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, we hosted this year’s event in Brighton Pavilion, alongside the AGM and the launch of this 2017 Annual Review. Sticking to the Plan: The Regional Business Plan sets out our core work and has been the focus of your Regional Management Board this year delivering CPD events, supporting new and existing members, and engaging with our local planning schools. Our Regional Budget has been put to good

use funding worthy causes such as bursaries for three university students in the region, supporting our Young Planners Networks, and funding further projects we felt beneficial (read more later in this review). Thank you to our Treasurer, Andrew Triggs, for his excellent work managing the budget. Keeping in touch: We have published our usual series of newsletters with some running themes including apprenticeships and the role of planning in modern society. One focus of my term as Chair has been the improvement in the increased use of technology and communication for monitoring our work and engaging with members. We undertook a members’ survey at the end of 2016, the results of which we have used to shape our CPD programme throughout 2017. In addition, we now have a robust online feedback mechanism for every CPD event and an ever-increasing Twitter following for updates on all of our news and events.

Appreciation As always, Regional work depends on the efforts of volunteers to organise an event, or oversee a key project, as well as our members engaging with us and attending events. Delivering this regional a programme is a big task but very rewarding, and the feedback is always positive. Many thanks to all involved. How are we doing? Please take a few minutes to read through this Annual Review to see the full extent of our work this year and share with us any ideas or feedback you may have. We work on your behalf and are always seeking the input from you as members.

Regional Management Board 2017  Chair: Gareth Giles, Whaleback Planning & Design  Vice Chair: Cian Cronin, Adur and Worthing Councils  Honorary Treasurer: Andrew Triggs, Camden Council  Honorary Secretary: David Jarman, Hobbs Parker Group  Immediate Past Chair: Susan Percy, CIHT  GA Representative: Stephen Harness, DIO Regional Activities Committee 2017            

John Alcock: Retired Tony Chadwick: Gravesham Borough Council Ellie Gingell: South Northamptonshire and Cherwell Council Steve Lees: Consultant Reece Lemon: Savills Angela Moore: Horsham District Council Claire Potts: Arun District Council Harriet Richardson: Batcheller Monkhouse Martin Small: Historic England Will Sparling: Vale of Whitehorse District Council Ron Tate: Retired Martin Willey: Retired

Gareth Giles, RTPI South East Chair

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Championing the Planning Profession RTPI South East Awards for Planning Excellence: We once again ran our annual awards to showcase good planning practice in the South East, and celebrate the great work of planning and planners. We introduced the Young Planner of the Year category, to highlight contributions of those in the early stages of their planning career. This year’s overall Regional Winning project was Depot, Lewes Community Screen. Read about the winners. Our awards were presented at our awards ceremony in the beautiful rooms of the Brighton Pavilion on 23rd November. RTPI President’s Visit to the Region: RTPI President Stephen Wilkinson saw first-hand how RTPI members are helping deliver housing, infrastructure and other important projects, on his tour of Kent. Our Chair greatly enjoyed accompanying Stephen around a part of the Region he was less familiar with. They met planners working for local authorities and developers dealing with similar issues from redeveloping complex brownfield land to boosting tourism. Stephen was warmly

welcomed at the Kent Young Planners Network re-launch event in Medway Gun Wharf where he set out his vision to pursue the promotion of social justice through planning. Inspiring Future Planners: This year, supported by our young planner networks, we delivered talks at all our RTPI accredited Planning Schools (Brighton, Reading, and Oxford Brookes) offering guidance to planning students and promoting the benefits of RTPI membership. We again funded three RTPI Future Planners bursaries for postgraduate students, and focussed on graduates and apprentices through newsletters, with On Your Soapbox contributions, regular Young Planners Update and dedicated articles, giving these important newcomers to planning a platform to share their views. We contributed £3,000 (and volunteer voice actors) to the RTPI’s Fun Kids Radio project: a series of podcasts with characters Agent Plan-it and Annathe-Planner, introducing students age 8-13 to the world of planning.

The RTPI President joins us for a tour of Gillingham Waterfront led by Medway Council.

“With an increasingly diverse and exciting range of jobs available in planning, the value of talking about the work and the employer is ever more valuable for students. They are faced with choices that often need explanation and insight that only those doing these jobs can provide. As such these sessions with RTPI members prove very useful.” Prof Gavin Parker, Director of Planning Programmes, University of Reading

Agent Plan-it and Anna the Planner introduce kids to the world of planning via fun kids radio.

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Supporting and Growing Membership: CPD Programme Low-Cost CPD Events Programme We run an annual CPD programme of 12-14 low-cost events on key planning topics. A multi-buy ticket is available offering a discounted block of places, for use throughout the year.

ensuring as far as possible all members are within easy reach of a range of CPD events (see appendix 1).

Legal Update attendee

Attendance A larger CPD programme, growing awareness of the multi-buy offer, and rising popularity of our events, has resulted in a significant increase in attendance at CPD events.

A subsidised rate of £5+vat is available at all these events for students and unwaged members; ensuring cost does not discourage attendance. Free Evening Lectures and Events In addition to the low-cost events, the Region holds a number of free evening events, collaborating with each of the three RTPI accredited planning schools in the South East. These free events offer a lecture or panel discussion followed by drinks reception for networking and discussion.

CPD Attendance - 2012-2017 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0

Attendance at free CPD events Attendance at paid to attend CPD events

Regional Membership Figures 2017

6%

2%

12%

Chartered Town Planner* Fellow Associate Legal Associate Retired Honorary Licentiate Student Affiliate *This class includes Legal Members

“Best CPD event I have attended!” Infrastructure and Planning event attendee

“The event was excellent; an afternoon of engaging speakers passionate about housing and the planning system.” Housing Matters Attendee

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Geographical Spread We aim to deliver a fair geographical spread for our CPD programme,

“Extremely good, well presented and topical – well worth the money”

”When considering taking my current role, the offer of access to RTPI training through the council’s multi-buy ticket showed a willingness to invest in the learning and development of staff a pull factor for me as I’d like to become Chartered.” Rebecca Smith, Assistant Planning Officer Brighton&Hove CityCouncil

14% 64% 2%

“Another excellent event…always very popular and will no doubt remain so” Regular attendee at RTPI South East CPD events

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Supporting and Growing Membership: Networks Young Planners’ Networks The South East now has a record four active Young Planners’ Networks (YPN): -

South Coast YPN

-

Surrey YPN

-

Thames Valley YPN

-

Kent YPN (launched in 2017).

The four networks this year have between them delivered nineteen successful events focused on those in the first ten years of post qualification experience. These events have ranged from L-APC workshops, to legal updates, to pub quizzes, and are usually held on weekday evenings free of charge. The networks provide a platform for those in the early stages of their planning career to build a strong network of colleagues and friends. The Region allocates funds from the Regional income to support these events.

In August three of the networks joint forces to host a flagship Summer social at the Bombay Sapphire Distillery. Retired Members Group 2016 saw the launch of our Retired Planners’ Group, and events have continued this year including a tour of Petersfield Town Centre and a trip up the i360 in Brighton. Attendees have been appreciative of this initiative, which sees events organised by Retired Members for Retired Members, and provides something geared to their interests and retains their association with the Institute. Outings have so far been predominantly in the south west of the region, with a '3Ps' formula (Pie, Pin(o)t and Planning) involving a tour or outing followed by lunch in a nearby pub. We hope in 2018 the initiative will be picked up by retired members elsewhere in the Region.

Our Young Planners enjoy cocktails, following a tour of the gin distillery at the historic Laverstoke Mill. .

“Feedback from the first full year of the Kent Young Planners has been really positive with people specifically enjoying the range of CPD events. There are plenty of suggestions coming in for future events, which shall help guide us as we plan for 2018.” Tom Gilbert, Chair of Kent Young Planners Network

Our Retired Planners Group enjoy the sunshine in the Physics Garden in Petersfiled.

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Shaping and Informing Policy and Practice. Research: With the income generated from our CPD programme we have commission two projects with the RTPI Policy team to be launched in 2018. 1. Advice note on SEAs and SAs: Since there has been much experience gained and important legal cases shaping SEA and SA processes, since the current guidance on the topic was published by DCLG, we felt members would benefit from an updated note on Good Practice in Preparing SEAs and SAs. Levett-Therivel, LUC and AECOM are preparing this note which will be available in early 2018 and will be the centre of a CPD event in the Spring. 2. Investing in Delivery: With the NorthWest Region we have appointed Arup to research and investigate the resourcing, staffing pressures and delivery structures in local planning authorities in the area. With the Government allowing LAs to increase their fee income the project will examine how local authorities are

intending to invest the additional fee income (i.e. in which planning functions), how they intend to target the resources to improve performance and what impact this will have on wider planning, housing and development issues. The report will be published in April 2018. Roundtable Discussions: In May, members attended an event with NIC in Milton Keynes, contributing ideas on how LAs, LEPs and the government can deliver infrastructure, housing and jobs for the Cambridge– Milton Keynes - Oxford corridor. In November we held a roundtable for local authority planners on direct provision of housing. Janice Morphet led the discussion gathering views and knowledge for her research on the topic. Twitter and E-Bulletins: Through twitter (@RTPISouthEast) and regular e-bulletins/newsletters, we highlight important topics. In 2017, our number of twitter followers increased by 40%.

“Being able to hold roundtables in all the RTPI regions for our research on how local authorities are engaging in providing housing was of great benefit. In the SE the insights on elder care housing, national parks and multiple methods - traditional and innovative being employed to deliver local authority housing at scale - were particularly useful.” Prof Janice Morphet, UCL

Empowering Communities Planning Aid England Sub-group and Volunteer Training Events

Annual Neighbourhood Planning Event with Planning Aid England

The RTPI South East work with Planning Aid England (PAE) to promote their work and help recruit volunteers.

Each year we hold a Neighbourhood Planning event jointly badged with Planning Aid England, this year taking place in October in Didcot, with speakers including Prof Gavin Parker, and Neighbourhood Planning Champion, Geoffrey Botting.

The Region offers £5+vat subsidised places at our CPD events for PAE volunteers, and has allocated funds in the budget for 2018 to help PAE continue their good work. After many years of good work, this year our regional representative for PAE stood down, so our goal for 2018 is to recruit a new representative and steering group, and increase our support of PAE’s work

This event was open to communities as well as our members. Though the event received very positive feedback from those who attended, the proportion of non-planners there was minimal. In 2018 we aim to hold an event more successfully targeted at community groups.

International Development: We contributed £1,000 to an international project trip for Oxford Brookes students to conduct a evelopment project in Cavalcante, Brazil. Due to the large number of tourists the National Park Authority are opening a northern gateway to the park from Cavalcante in 2018. Students prepared a Cavalcante Masterplan to guide this crucial stage of development.

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Achieving Good Governance. Regional Governance Structure We currently have 18 members on our Regional Activities Committee (RAC), 6 of these being on the Regional Management Board (RMB). Regional Meetings are held quarterly in London, with items concerning the RMB opening the meeting and items concerning the RAC following. Committee members are encouraged to attend both parts of the meeting to input their views, though final decisions regarding the budget and business plan lie with the RMB. The Regional Activities Committee, with the Regional Coordinator, are able to deliver a wide range of activities for our 3,900 members. Members interested in the Region’s work or joining the RAC can attend our committee meeting as a guest. Agendas and minutes of the meeting are published on the RTPI website. Find out how you can get involved by contacting [email protected].

Budget and Business Plan Annually the Regional Management Board prepare a Business Plan and Budget for the coming year. These will be written following discussions and input from the Regional Activities Committee, and this year following the circulation of a South East members survey. The draft budget and Business Plan are sent to the RTPI Board of Trustees for approval. Regional Surplus Continued increase in bookings at our low cost CPD events over the last few years has resulted in greater than forecast income and significant surplus has built up. The sum was £53,359 at the end of 2016. This year we set up an RAC sub-group to look into projects for use of these funds. Please email [email protected] with suggestions of projects beneficial to members.

“The Regional Business Plan sets out the Region’s core work and has been the focus of our Regional Management Board this year. Delivering the CPD events calendar, supporting new and existing members, improving communication with members, and engaging with our local planning schools.” RTPI South East Chair, Gareth Giles

RTPI South East Budget Summary

Income

Expenditure

Surplus / (Deficit)

2016 Actual

2017 Forecast

2018 Budget

SE CPD

£25,852

£27,000

£28,000

Other

£1,750

£2,000

£15,900

Total income

£27,602

£29,000

£43,900

Grant / regional contribution

-

Allocated direct costs

£29,606

£37,396

N/a

Activities

£24,087

£22,400

£37320

Total Expenditure

£17,125

£23,532

£43,905

£10,477

£5,468

(£5)

£36,569

-

£36,264

£6,585

The RTPI is a charity registered in England (262865) and Scotland (SC037841). Registered Office Address: Royal Town Planning Institute, 41 Botolph Lane, London, EC3R 8DL. [email protected]