Meet the 2013 Regional Chair

We are very pleased to announce that Peter Warner is Chair of the RTPI East of England in 2013.

Peter has been an active member of the East of England RAC for many years and, until 31 December 2012, was Head of Planning and Business Services at Great Yarmouth Borough Council (until taking voluntary severance). 

His theme is 'Support Your RTPI - It Is Here For You and Your Professional Development'.

Peter writes:

2013 will be a year in which ‘planning’ in its widest sense will still be very much in the national as well as the local headlines. Planning will still be both the focus of acclaim and criticism. As professionals we could be seen as the saviour of the countryside but the keeper of the keys to the unlockable employment and housing filing cabinets. We are under pressure from our employers to work harder and be expected to adopt and embrace new systems of management.  The public’s expectations of us and our levels of competence and achievement will be ever higher. At the same time, the Institute may have to be given second place – targets to meet, fewer staff and more structural change means less time out of the office environment. The pressures are there too for private sector members who still have to bid for that elusive piece work to pay the mortgage.

My challenge, as Chair for 2013, is to get us all engaged (or re-engaged) with our own professional development and participation in our Institute – your Institute.

I regard it as a great privilege to be nominated as Chair of the RTPI East of England. Over the years, I have been given the freedom by my employer to be engaged with the Institute, provided I got the day job done. It has given me a freedom to work on projects that, as a young planner, I would never have dreamed of – but it happened for me and it can happen to all of us provided we have the vision to succeed, whatever the difficulty or setbacks.

It is easy for me to reminisce over the past, but it is good for all of us to look forward and plan the future. Yes, planning could be simpler (we would all agree with that), but there is a need for us (and, importantly, myself as Regional Chair) to emphasise the value of planning at all levels, not only to the government but to the public throughout our region as a whole. I take the view that the Institute needs to work more closely with the private sector, particularly to meet the CPD needs of the independent planners for which even a half day away (let alone a whole day) means a day without earned income.

I look forward to meeting and working with as many members as I can during my term of office.