Royal Town Planning Institute Chief Executive, Victoria Hills, said:
“The Government’s new industrial strategy recognises the essential element that planning will play in helping to deliver sustainable growth for the future.
“It is important that the Strategy integrates with planning at both local and strategic contexts. This will support the 10 Year infrastructure Strategy’s ambitions to develop place-based business cases, maximising public and private sector investments and the countries growth potential.
“There remains a question about how these reforms will be resourced. We have long argued the case for increased capacity in local planning authorities to help deliver the growth agenda. Recent changes to level 7 apprenticeships could see as many as 200 planners a year fall out of the system, which would create further pressure and potentially hinder government’s ambition.
“The RTPI makes the case that any workforce strategy and considerations over skills shortages should include planning as it is a vital professional service needed to unlock development. To achieve this, we would strongly advocate for planning to be included in the Government’s 5-year construction skills package.
“We will be publishing a second State of The Profession report this year to assess the condition of the UK’s planning system ahead of the implementation of the reforms we have seen this year.”
