Well done to public sector planners

 Well done to public sector planners

 

It may just be me, but I always feel a little underwhelmed reading posts on how wonderful the postee or their company has been. This planning consent has been won or that award secured. It comes over a bit like a zero sum game, rather than striving to secure the best outcome for any particular circumstance. I try and avoid, even if subconsciously, falling into that trap. Sure I could post some successes and I could also mention some failures, but to find them out you will have to take me for a coffee! (And to be honest you can learn more from your failures than successes in many cases anyway). However, we don’t want to write about those failures for understandable reasons.

 

I find it much more interesting if posts try and advance our knowledge or express an opinion on an issue of the day. Hearing both sides or indeed all sides of an argument has to be beneficial; in my case for advancing the art and science of town planning, but really knowledge in general.

 

All that said I want to now praise three public sector planners with whom I have been involved in long running planning issues; two of which were enforcement related and all have been finally resolved in the last month. Due to the very nature of their work such planners are generally not high profile and indeed not expected or encouraged to be. So, they don’t get the praise generally and on Linkedin in particular.

So with a little bit of trepidation, I would like to praise and thank, in alphabetical order, James Croucher of Peterborough City; Ian Davies of Blaby District; and, Mark Patterson of Harborough District for providing good old professional service and going more than that extra mile to achieve an outcome as beneficial as possible to all parties. There was no personal benefit to them of devoting extra commitment and not a little skill to these issues; other than the satisfaction of a job well done.

 

 But it meant for me when picking up the phone or receiving an e mail from them it was very likely a positive experience towards resolving a problem. And it was more likely to be a solution rather than another problem.  It was one where one could look forward to receiving a message rather than dread. 

 

So thank you so much guys.