In the November issue of The Planner; Tackling the challenges, embracing the changes’: looking back at an unusual year, Victoria Hills, CEO of the Royal Town Planning Institute, wrote an article looking at the challenges and highlights of the year to date. The article is reproduced in full below:
'Tackling the challenges, embracing the changes’: looking back at an unusual year
This has been a year of extraordinary change and as we continue to navigate our way through the current climate, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for the support you continue to give to RTPI.
Whilst it has been a time of uncertainty, we have also had the opportunity to do things differently. We have tackled the challenges and embraced the changes, and they have enabled us to work smarter by transforming our operations digitally to ensure we can continue to support you.
Here are some of my highlights:
Communicating with members
In early March, we introduced a weekly COVID-19 bulletin to update you with our response to the outcomes of limiting the effects of the coronavirus and to inform you how we were continuing to offer our member services going forwards, as well as providing updates on all UK government’s changes that affected planning systems.
We were excited to launch our new website back in March and I’ve received some fantastic feedback on the site. The new site has enabled us to create new ‘hubs’ for important information which we soon used to create our coronavirus hub. This hub is a one-stop shop for all COVID-19 news including: updates from Government and other agencies that relate to planners and the planning system, sharing experiences from other planners and COVID-19 modules from RTPI Learn. In the hub, we are offering support for members and their families in hardship via RTPI Trust.
Awards
With the cancelling of all face to face events and travel due to the pandemic, we quickly responded by pivoting the events we could to online platforms. We kicked off our online events with our annual RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence ceremony which took place virtually on 30 April. The atmosphere was fantastic with Marmalade Lane (submitted by TOWN & Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service) winning not only two project categories, but also the much coveted Silver Jubilee Cup. These virtual awards were so successful with over 3,000 views on our YouTube channel, so far.
Our regional Awards for Planning Excellence take place online this month from 16-19 November celebrating the very best of planning at a local level. You can join the celebrations on YouTube.
Our 2021 Awards for Planning Excellence are now open for entries so do join us to celebrate the very best in our profession by entering by 14 December. All categories are free to enter. Why not enter your ‘Planning Heroes in a Pandemic’?
Online training and events
Our staff and volunteers have been working collaboratively staging a series of online CPD webinars to keep us connected and up-to-date. A broad range of planning topics have been covered during our online events series such climate change, digital technologies, and health and inclusive planning and of course how planning is responding to the pandemic and recovery, which we have offered free of charge during 2020. Our training masterclasses went online this year offering cost effective CPD wherever you are based.
In June, we held a week long programme of sessions for ‘The Planner Live Online’. You can catch up on how it went on our YouTube channel. As I write, The Planner Live is also taking place in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Our Young Planners come together on 11 November at their virtual conference with the theme ‘New Decade, New Leaders’.
We will continue to run online webinars in 2021 and we hope that they continue to engage and deliver value. The number of bookings and attendance for our online events have exceeded our expectations, and the feedback from attendees has been excellent.
Plan the World We Need
Back in March, we asked you for your input into how we can plan for post-pandemic recovery and through our policy and public affairs work, we have looked to influence and engage with governments across the UK and Ireland on planning’s response to COVID-19.
In June, during our week-long The Planner live online, our 2020 President Sue Manns, FRTPI launched our Plan The World We Need campaign, based on our excellent report of the same name. The campaign’s main objective is to raise awareness of the essential role planners play in creating a resilient, sustainable and inclusive world that delivers on net-zero targets. The campaign has been well received and some highlights to date include 27 pieces of media coverage, a film with 8,100 views on YouTube and it was quoted in the England Planning for the Future White Paper. You can catch up on the latest updates here.
All of our teams are now working remotely but this has not slowed our delivery, our Membership team has just reported a higher than ever pass rate for APC, our Education and Careers team continue to promote planning as a career to young people and will soon be launching the schools’ competition on the theme of Plan The World We Need. Across our regions and Nations our work and that of our volunteers has maintained its momentum, providing opportunities for members to access high quality CPD webinars and to represent the profession to all governments in the UK, influencing policies and promoting the opportunities and capabilities of planning to solve so many of the issues we are facing now.
RTPI in the news
This has been a remarkable year for media coverage with articles featuring comment and research by the RTPI appearing across the national media, including the BBC website, The Times and the Telegraph, as well as local press. A highlight was a letter from me which was published in The Times in June headlined ‘Planning shake-up’ in which I took issue with the notion that the planning regime is a “socialist relic” of post-war Britain.
Immediately following the announcement of the Government’s plans for planning reform at the start of August, I embarked on a marathon session of media appearances to put forward the case for planning – these included interviews with BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours, Times Radio and Talk Radio.
Looking to the future
In September, I joined a newly created expert advisory group for the Covid Recovery Commission. In my role, I will continue to support the work of the group to produce bold and practical ideas to ensure the UK economy emerges stronger, fairer and more resilient post-COVID.
I’m currently working on launching more projects from our new 10-year corporate strategy. You can keep up-to-date with projects as we launch them in your monthly members’ bulletin and our corporate strategy hub. Here, you can read about our volunteering strategy and CHANGE - our 10 year action plan to make the planning profession more diverse and inclusive. I look forward to driving these forward and working with many of you in 2021.
