FREE EVENT: Planning for Growth in London: How the Planning Portal can help

Date: Tuesday 20 March 2012

Venue: DCLG Head Office, Eland House, Bressenden Place, London SW1E 5DU (nearest tube station, London Victoria)

The Planning Portal is hosting a FREE event in collaboration with RTPI London, RICS, CIAT and RIBA in the South East.

This is the first time all four organisations, plus key speakers from DCLG and the Planning Portal, will collectively discuss regional and national planning topics with a particular focus on Planning for growth in the South East and the tools available to help achieve it.

This is an excellent opportunity to find out more about submitting planning applications electronically, so if you haven’t used the Planning Portal before, why not come along and find out just how easy it is to save time and minimise your costs by working online?

Key speakers from each organisation speaking about current hot topics including:

How can Planners and Planning play a crucial role in bringing together other professionals (including Architects and Surveyors) in delivering sustainable development in London? – Julia Riddle, Chair (RTPI London), Associate Director, DTZ Associates

CIAT – Building Information Management/Modelling (BIM) and Planning - Keith Snook, HonMCIAT

RIBA – How does architectural design and quality fit in to the Planning process? – Chris Hampson-Williams, Chair – Design & Planning Group (RIBA London), Director, Hampson Williams

RICS – The Plan for Growth – Key development issues for London – Faraz Baber, Executive Director, Planning & Development

DCLG – Legislation Update – Shona Dunn, Director of Planning

Planning Portal - why it’s easier and faster to submit planning applications online, giving you and your company a competitive advantage from using the Planning Portal - Stuart Mockford, Planning Portal

There will also be a panel-led question and answer session with participating key speakers from DCLG, all member organisations and the Planning Portal. If that isn’t enough, there will be ample networking opportunities with other members from other organisations over a free lunch and refreshments!

This is the first time all four organisations, plus key speakers from DCLG and the Planning Portal, will collectively discuss regional and national planning topics with a particular focus on Planning for growth in the South East and the tools available to help achieve it.

For booking information please go to: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LONRTPI12

Registration on the day is 9.45am and the first presentation will start promptly at 10am and the event will finish at approx 3.15pm.

Please note there is a £25 fee for cancellations within 72 hours notice of the event. A maximum of 2 persons from the same representing company is preferred. There will be a reserve list if you wish more representatives to attend and we will do our best to accommodate you, where possible. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Cheralyn Dark (0117 372 8614) or Beccy Greenfield (0117 372 8901) at the Planning Portal.

Young Planners Drinks @ Henry’s Bar, 80 Piccadilly, W1J 8HX, 6pm-late, Thursday 22nd March

Come and join other Young Planners and Surveyors (with our friends at MATRICS London – the ‘young’ arm of the RICS regional branch) for some informal spring drinks. No need to book, just turn up – nibbles will be provided.

View the flyer for full details.

Young Planners needed! Sharing spatial planning ideas across Europe

Are you interested in sharing experience, ideas and dialogue on spatial planning for sustainable development with planners across Europe?

The European Council of Spatial Planners Conseil Européen des Urbaniste (ECTP-CEU) are running a series of workshops through 2012 to bring Young Planners and other built environment professions throughout Europe together to exchange visions and experiences of spatial planning.

The RTPI are forming a group to work alongside planners and built environment professionals from Spain, France, Norway and Belgium, among others, to share ideas about how to better exploit regional potential and territorial capital in working towards sustainable development.

The programme will comprise a series of virtual workshops held between April 2012 – December 2012 that seeks to examine topics such as: urban systems of cities; influences of economic crisis on occupation; and community involvement and territorial development, using case studies of different regions across Europe, chosen by each national group.  It will culminate in a presentation at the ETCP-CEU in Brussels in December.

The RTPI delegation will be using the case study of London, and invites young planners both within and outside the city to take participate in assessing its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to develop debate on the issues surrounding territorial cohesion in regions inEurope.

If you are interested in taking part please contact rachel.ferguson@cbre.com.

Pub Quiz

Back bigger, better and by popular demand, the RTPI London Pub Quiz was held at Auberge bar in the City.

Seventeen eager teams battled it out for glory and fantastic prizes. First up was a tense planning picture round in which participants were challenged to identify key planning figures from a fearsome composite image, and to select the listed structures from a series of images. The atmosphere lightened with the Nostalgia round, which prompted a spontaneous chorus of the theme to ‘Bodger and Badger’. We all learnt something new from the ‘London Boroughs beginning with H’ round.

Hilarity gave way to serious competition in the playdough round, for which a separate mystery prize was up for grabs. Teams were tasked with constructing their favourite building. Entries were of an extremely high quality, including St Paul’s Cathedral with protest camp and Milton Keynes. Winners of the playdough challenge were ’Hello, Quiz it me you’re looking for?’, a mixed team of planners from the London Boroughs of Wandsworth, Tower Hamlets and Brent: a wonderful exercise in cross-authority working resulted in the construction of the Taj Mahal.

Two hours of intensive quizzing resulted in clear winners - well done to the Atkins Eggheads! A tie-breaker was needed to determine second and third places, resulting in second place for ‘Little Society’ from DCLG and third place for ‘The Only Way is URS-ex’ from URS. Even the losers were winners, with our last placed team winning a special commiseration prize. Look out for the next pub quiz, coming soon!

Deborah Baker

CIL Payment and Collection Event

RTPI London ran a CIL Payment and Collection CPD event on Wednesday 1^st February, kindly hosted by the GLA at City Hall. The purpose of the event was to raise awareness and understanding of the payment and collection process for the Mayor of London’s Mayoral CIL which is anticipated to come into force in just 2 months time, from 1^st April 2012.

Richard Linton (Greater London Authority) kicked off the event with a presentation on the process so-far for the Mayoral CIL and his top 10 ‘hints and tips’ for developers and local authorities in paying and collecting the CIL.

Graham Jones (Jones & Jones Associates and Planning Officers Society CIL Lead) presented on his experience in drafting the POS Advice Note on CIL and Infrastructure Planning and working with local authorities on the implementation process.

Steve Dennington (London Borough of Croydon) followed by outlining the practical steps Croydon has taken to prepare itself for collection of the Mayoral CIL, as well as for its own local CIL at a later date. This included an insight into the importance of cross-departmental liaison between planning services, exchequer services and delivery.

Gilian MacInnes (Planning Advisory Service) concluded the presentations by talking about her experience in CIL charge-setting and collection from the PAS CIL front-runners across the country.

The speakers were then joined by Ian Rae (London Borough of Redbridge) and Steve Woolley (Department for Communities and Local Government) in a Panel Q&A session. This covered topics such as: section 73 planning applications, garages, social housing relief, the justification of the Mayoral CIL rates, impact of CIL on house prices, house conversions and proposed fixes to the CIL regulation 40 calculation. The presentations from the evening are all available at www.rtpi.org.uk/rtpi_london.

The event was kindly sponsored by www.idoxgroup.com.

RTPI London: Young Planners

RTPI London Young Planners has an exciting year ahead with its usual mixture of social and networking events in addition to the national Young Planners Conference being hosted in London later in 2012. If you are not already on the e-mailing list for RTPI London Young Planners and you’d like to be updated on upcoming events, please subscribe by emailing the new email address: rtpilondonyoungplanners@gmail.com

Community Infrastructure Levy: Payment and Collection – 18:00 – 20:00 – Wednesday 1 February 2012

The Mayor of London’s Mayoral CIL Charging Schedule is expected to come into force from April 2012.  This event will aim to answer questions on the practical payment and collection of CIL from both an applicant and local authority perspective.  Speakers include:  Andrew Barry-Purcell, GLA – Graham Jones, Jones and Jones Associates and POS CIL Lead – Steve Dennington, LB Croydon and Gilian MacInnes, Planning Advisory Service.  For more information on this and booking information please click here.