Planning and Enabling Officer

at  Staffordshire County Council

Job Introduction
Are you passionate about shaping the future of your community? Do you thrive in a fast-paced environment where no two days are the same? If so, we have an exciting opportunity for you!
The Planning Team at Staffordshire County Council plays a crucial role in managing planning applications for new developments, including quarries, waste sites, and County Council projects (such as schools and roads). We’re also responsible for maintaining our Minerals and Waste Plans, which guide our decision-making process.
The role is ideal for a candidate seeking to establish a career in planning and/or economic development or as an experienced planner/economic analyst wishing to broaden their skills within a progressive planning service covering an area boasting extensive countryside along with historic market towns and villages; whilst recognising our important peri-urban geography and interrelationship with several medium and large sized conurbations given our excellent transport and connectivity infrastructure.

Main Responsibilities

As a key member of our team, you’ll provide technical support to our Development Control, Planning Policy, Planning Regulation and Economic Development officers. Your tasks will provide the opportunity to gain experience across a diverse range of work areas including:

• Enabling through monitoring and commenting on Neighbourhood Plans, District/Borough Local Plans, and through the monitoring and review of our own Minerals and Waste Local Plans.
• Delivery through the determination of planning applications and submissions for mineral and waste related development, and the Council’s own developments.
• Regulation through the monitoring of compliance with planning permissions granted for mineral and waste developments, investigation of unauthorised mineral or waste development, and where necessary taking enforcement action.
• Economic Development through research, collation and analysis of secondary economic data to support policy making, project / programme development and to inform the County Councils and other stakeholder’s economic strategies.
• Using Microsoft 365 based applications (including Outlook, Word, Excel, Teams, One Drive and SharePoint), and our planning software system ‘APAS’.

The Ideal Candidate

To excel in this role, you’ll need:

• Very good organisational skills as well as experience of learning new ways of working and new IT systems
• Good communication skills because you’ll interact with people in the team, across the organisation and externally by phone, Microsoft Teams, in person and email, and some of them may not understand the planning process
• Confidence, energy, an appreciation of the importance of attention to detail, and that you are analytical with bias for action.
• A flexible approach to work as sometimes priorities can change at short notice e.g. when we need to get a decision out on time.
• Self-motivated and conscientious as you may be expected to work alone to get your job done.

We offer a flexible blend of office, site visits and remote work. Most team members split their time approximately 50:50, allowing for an optimal work-life balance.
For an informal discussion about this role or other planning opportunities, reach out to mark.parkinson@staffordshire.gov.uk
About Staffordshire County Council