Interim Senior Planner/Principal Planner – Housing

Reference no:  Wigan 0007 3424 / 1

Pay Rate: Up to £45.00 per hour PAYE depending on experience

This opening assignment is for 3 months

Hybrid working

The role will be to manage a caseload consisting of a range of planning applications, pre-application enquiries and appeals. A number of these will be complex and will provide you with the opportunity to stretch and develop your professional skills. You will manage the processing of these applications having regard to statutory timescales and target dates for determination, coordinating inputs from internal and external stakeholders.

The successful candidate will promote and participate in a development team approach, representing the Council on projects of significant scale, negotiating packages of developer contributions, and influencing landowners and developers to secure high quality outcomes.

Key Responsibilities:

• Process a range of planning applications including some complex cases within the statutory timescales.
• Deal with Planning appeals through a range of processes.
• Prepare and presented applications for Planning Committee.
• Engage with developers and their agents in regard to pre- application enquiries.
• Respond promptly to breaches of planning control through working with the Council’s planning enforcement officers.
• Respond promptly to enquiries and complaints in accordance with the Council’s standards and procedures.
• Deal with enquiries from Elected Members.

“Role Requirements” – to give yourself the maximum chance of success please try and ensure your CV addresses the following essential criteria:

Qualifications:

1. A degree or equivalent in town planning or a related professional discipline, and be a Chartered.
2. Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

Skills & Experience:

1. Minimum of 12 months recent experience in a similar role, or context and ideally within a public sector organisation.
2. Significant experience in dealing with a range of Planning Applications (ideally including some major applications), Prior Approval Notifications, Planning Appeals, Non-Material Amendment.
3. Applications and applications to Discharge Planning Conditions, providing robust decisions in accordance with statutory timescales.
4. A good understanding of Development Management guidance and procedures.
5. An appreciation of commercial issues relating to planning and development.
6. Experience of problem solving in a planning and development context.
7. Experience of speaking in a public environment.
8. Excellent communication skills, in written, spoken, graphic and multi-media forms, including the ability to write clear and concise reports.
9. The ability to work well in partnership and collaboratively with other disciplines, both within and outside the council, and to adopt a project management role in the co-ordination of inputs into planning applications in order for a clear communication channel to be established with applicants and their agents.
10. An appreciation of and respect for the political dimensions in planning and local government.
11. An ability to manage a large workload under pressure and to meet competing deadlines, be self- organised and able to work well alone with limited supervision.
12. ICT Skills: Strong IT skills including Microsoft packages or equivalent (e.g. G Suite).

NB: Please feel free to apply to us direct via [email protected] by quoting the job reference and job title exactly. SEE DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS AD.

If you have previously applied to one of our vacancies and have already sent the required supporting documentation to us, please make this clear when you re-apply as this will help speed up your application.

To help speed up the process of uploading your CV to the client we would suggest that you send us your CV in Word format (or equivalent) if possible, rather than as a PDF

If you are successful in securing this role, please note that for the entire duration of this contract, regardless of extension you will be working this role at the PAYE rate that has been advertised. For absolute clarity, we only work on a PAYE basis, rather than entertaining umbrella pay terms, we do not offer Ltd/umbrella or outside IR35 rates. If you wish to understand PAYE vs Umbrella more, please let us know and we can send you some additional information for clarity.