Gareth Denning

Senior Planning Consultant,

Hyder Consulting

BSc Hons Environmental Planning

Graduate Diploma in Town Planning

My Planning career began with a broad interest in geography throughout my school years, which developed over time into a more specific interest in the layout and development of towns, cities and settlements as a whole. This interest was encouraged by career advice whilst studying for A-levels, and led to me applying for a mixture of Planning and Geography degree courses.

Once I had begun my undergraduate degree course, progression into planning as a career was always my aim. This was further encouraged by work placements taken as part of my studies, and experience gained during the summer months.

I graduated in 1999, and started out in a six month European funded post as an assistant planning officer at Warwickshire County Council. After six weeks in the post I was offered a job as an assistant planner at Walsall MBC within an Environmental Regeneration team. This post was only temporarily funded, so I then moved to Cardiff to be an Assistant Planning Officer in the Strategic Planning and Neighbourhood Renewal team at Cardiff County Council. I then left to become a projects officer in the Projects and Design Section at Newport City Council, and from there I left for my current post at Hyder Consulting.

My current job involves …..

My current job in Hyder Consulting involves a wide range of work and has many different aspects. Our core work is undertaking regeneration studies for individual buildings, sites, Town Centres, and organisations. We work for a mixture of private, public and voluntary sector groups and organisations, not just here in Wales or the UK, but abroad too.

I have assisted in the production of a physical development plan for the Island of Nevis in the Caribbean which required a ‘strenuous’ week of site visits and meetings. The plan took into account the competing land interests on the island, the need to safeguard the environmental quality of the coast and natural landscape and provide for future expansion in the housing, agricultural, tourism and commercial sectors.

I have also completed a 4 month secondment in our Dubai office, where I managed the development of a mixed use master plan for a 200 hectare site adjacent to the Burj Al Arab. The role required working with consultancies drawn from all corners of the earth.

I have provided planning advice for the development of a master plan for the Silverstone Race Track where meetings were often held in a farm building in the middle of a track whilst F1 cars carried out testing on the Grand Prix circuit.

I am currently providing planning advice to the Ministry of Defence for the redevelopment of a Hydrographics Office, from where 75% of the world’s nautical maps are produced.

My Views on Planning as a Career

From my own personal experiences, job opportunities have always been available at every point in my career when I have needed a new job either through the need for a change, a higher salary, reaching the end of a contract or through personal choice.

Generally, there will always be a need for controlling and managing the location, appearance, form and extent of new development and ensuring the support network is in place to ensure any harmful impacts of new building proposals are avoided or compensated for. The jobs associated with this are varied and will always be required.

The teams and departments I have worked in have all been structured in a similar format, with 3 or 4 levels of seniority. Progression up the ‘ladder’ is achievable and facilitated through building up experience.

Planning offers variety – some days will be spent sitting at a desk on a computer, others will require site visits and most days are a combination of the two. Since switching to the private sector the variety has increased due to the need to work wherever our skills are required.

Working in the public sector provides you with a sense of contributing to the improvement of the area within which you work.

Planning is a career for logical thinkers – the ability to keep your head and sense of perspective when everyone else is losing theirs is an essential requirement! For this reason, town planners make for good project managers and the interaction this brings with many other disciplines makes Planning an enjoyable career.

Author:

Roisin Willmott

Publisher:

The Royal Town Planning Institute

Date:

26-Nov-08

Categories:

Planning as a Career 

Sections:

Education & Careers

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