Town Planner

**Town Planning Lead**

**Maple Cross**

We are recruiting for a Town Planning Lead to join our Planning and Consents team. Reporting into our Head of Consents, you will be overseeing and managing Statutory Town Planning Consents for our C1 section of the HS2 project. This will be achieved through effective management of the Technical Experts and engagement and interface with Align’s Production and Programme teams.

**About the role**
- Leading the process of acquiring Schedule 17 and Town and Country Planning Act consents for all works, working with technical design teams and production (construction) team to deliver consents in a timely manner to ensure that they are available in advance of construction programme needs.
- Manage the preparation of the consents, including writing and preparing reports.
- Manage the determination of the consents and reporting back to the relevant teams on approvals and conditions.
- Reviewing and commenting on requests for design change to determine if there are any consent implications.
- Management of discharging any conditions appended to consent conditions.
- Working with the Area Consents Managers to balance resource requirements and seek intervention of Consents Manager as required where peak requirements could impact delivery.
- Ownership of consents trackers related to town planning and support of other registers and trackers to support wider consents delivery.
- Own the technical working relationship for town planning with key stakeholders.
- Manage the town planning relationship with the client (HS2 Ltd) including review, delivery of documents and closeout of consent documentation.
- Support the Consent Manager in reinforcing consent awareness for the C1 team (Design + Construction)
- Support on Land acquisition and Land Hand back duties

**About you**
You will have demonstrable experience of working at a similar level with experience within town planning consents management ideally on large infrastructure/construction projects.

You’ll also hold a degree or equivalent qualification and experience in a Town Planning Discipline.

You’ll also have sound legal understanding of Town Planning legislation such as EIA legislation, the General Permitted Development Order (GPDO) and Development Management Procedure Order (DMPO). It is desirable that you have an understanding of Schedule 17 to the HS2 Act and the discharging of conditions under special consenting regimes.

You’ll have effective influencing and communication skills. You’ll also be a strong collaborator and relationship builder with effective stakeholder management skills.
- Desirable understanding or experience in the following areas: _
- Understanding of civil engineering practices, methods and techniques and programmes and critical paths
- GIS experience
- Basic knowledge of CAD software and Projectwise.
- Ecology and wildlife consents
- Noise and Vibration consents (Temp and Perm works)
- Surface water, groundwater and flooding consents
- Waste consents
- Traffic and Highway consents
- HS2 Land Powers