Director of Planning, Transport & Housing, North West Regional Assembly

The southernmost reaches of Middlesbrough afford fine views over the North Yorkshire Moors and the eccentric, but attractive, peak of Roseberry Topping. This vista greeted me as I walked to school everyday as a boy.

Those early experiences are one of the reasons I became interested in planning and the environment. Despite being initially keen to join the Ordnance Survey, I went into planning following friends in the profession. After qualifying in 1989, I went on to build up a breadth of expertise at a variety of local authorities in my native North East before moving to the North West 12 years ago.

My undergraduate degree in planning at NewcastleUniversity included a year out in practice at North Tyneside, an experience which was really valuable and gave me a head start in my career. After graduating, I took my first planning job in the forward planning team at Langbaurgh on Tees Borough Council, now known as Redcar and Cleveland. There I worked on housing land availability and the local plan in an interesting mix of a district with urban problems, deprivation, heavy industry and rural areas in East Cleveland that also raised regeneration issues.

I spent the next couple of years at Tynedale District Council working on the local plan including the extension of Green Belt around Hexham. I moved onto work for 4 years in Salford City Council's Development Services Directorate, heading the Information Team within the Forward Planning section dealing with primary housing data and policy development for the UDP.

Now aged 40, I have worked for the North West Regional Assembly in Wigan, since its establishment in 1998, holding a variety of roles, culminating in my appointment as Director of Planning Transport and Housing in early 2006. As the Regional Planning Body for North West England, the Assembly is responsible for preparing, monitoring, implementing and reviewing Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS), including the Regional Transport Strategy, for the whole of the North West from Cheshire to Cumbria. The Assembly is also the Regional Housing Board for the region, responsible for preparing, monitoring, implementing and reviewing the Regional Housing Strategy and advising Central Government on regional housing pot funding allocations.

Author:

Dushy Large

Publisher:

The Royal Town Planning Institute

Date:

11-Jan-07

Categories:

Planning as a Career 

Sections:

Education & Careers

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