The party conferences are over, and the autumn budget is upon us. We can now consider how to mark our 20th year. That's right, PAS is now 20. We were brought in to embed the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, helping Local Planning Authorities to understand and implement the changes and to build capability and capacity in the sector. We have changed in size and personnel over the years, yet our purpose remains the same.
With this in mind, we will be running our Chief Planners conference again. So please save the date: 27 to 28 February 2025. More details to follow.
Anna Rose
Head of PAS
You may be interested in this virtual event being held at 10.30-12 noon, Wednesday 30 October. It’ll give you an overview of self and custom-build housing and the work of the Right to Build Task Force. It’ll provide in-depth insights and experiences from officers at South Gloucestershire and Fareham Borough Councils, as well as giving a councillor perspective.
Working with Office for Place, we are looking to form nine regional local authority networks to share experiences and help tailor support.
We want a local authority urban designer or planner, with an active interest in design and a desire to learn and share experiences between LPAs to be a 'Design Advocate' in each region.
We will work with selected 'Advocates' with some direct financial support and ongoing advice to deliver a network in each region.
If you and your authority would be interested or like more information please go to the PAS website, or contact us at [email protected]
PAS is launching a project to discover what a modern & effective Planning Committee looks like and ultimately create some tools & resources for councils to use. To kick off the project we want to gather information and generate a national picture of how Planning Committees are currently operating. To do this we would like as many councils as possible to complete our survey
Queries have been raised in recent months, at PAS’s BNG Practitioner Network, on the Watercourses tab of the Statutory Biodiversity Metric. In response a session was organised by the Environment Agency and Natural England and facilitated by PAS relating to watercourses. You can watch the video of the webinar: PAS Webinar: A Deeper Dive into Watercourses with EA and NE (youtube.com)
PAS works with local authorities across the eight English Freeports to support them in their role as local planning authority and key stakeholder. Our new Freeports topic page answers questions on:
- what Freeports are
- where they are located
- the planning and environment rules for Freeports
- where to go for more information.
Over September and October 2024, PAS co-hosted a series of six online workshops with Solar Energy UK, the trade association representing the solar and energy storage industry. A recording of the presentations, along with copies of slides, from each of session is now available to watch and download on the PAS website
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