Planning Officer

• LCC373_Planning_Officer_Housing__Communities_KB_updated_2_6_2025_2

Why Lancaster?

We're an award-winning, kind and responsible council. We're incredibly proud of our district and communities that reach from coast to the mountains, including the historic City of Lancaster, Morecambe, Carnforth and many other beautiful places.

The district's combination of an outstanding environment and economic potential offer the most interesting planning opportunities to be involved in shaping.

The Role

The Planning and Housing Strategy Team is looking to recruit a qualified and experienced Planning Policy Officer to come and join our team working alongside the Principal Housing Strategy Officer on housing strategy and planning policy matters and other lead professionals responsible for climate change, biodiversity and heritage. We are advancing a new Local Plan for Lancaster district. The council has a strong record of keeping its development plan up to date and is also nationally acclaimed for its innovative work on climate mitigation and adaption.

We are looking for a strategic thinker who is hardworking, enthusiastic and highly motivated and will embrace working with high performing team members. Immediate priorities for the postholder will be to assist in the refresh of the housing evidence to support our new Local Plan. The council has already appointed consultants to prepare a district wide housing needs assessment to comprehensively review housing needs including market, affordable and specialist housing needs for Lancaster district's diverse communities. We intend to commission a new Affordable Housing Viability Study which the postholder will take the lead on to maximise opportunities to secure affordable housing. Next year, we will be preparing a new Homes Strategy for Lancaster which will be underpinned by our newly prepared housing studies and will link to policies being prepared for the new Local Plan.

We are looking for a professional who can produce clear and comprehensive written work including key policy documents such as Development Plan Documents, Supplementary Planning Documents and Planning Advice Notes and writing reports. We are looking for a confident speaker with great presentation skills and work alongside other team members at stakeholder engagement and public consultation events as well as presenting complex information in a clear and concise way to a wide range of audiences.

Developing and maintaining working relationships with other professionals within the Planning and Climate Change service, other council services and external bodies is a pre-requisite in this role, and will include providing support to colleagues in the Development Management team so that planning applications are determined in a timely way with robust information provided on meeting local housing need and by supporting our colleagues in housing teams to realise the council's housing and regeneration priorities for Lancaster district.

About You

You must have a degree or postgraduate qualification in town planning that is recognised by the Royal Town Planning Institute and have Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Chartered Membership, or demonstrable equivalent experience to be eligible to securing Chartered Membership status. Alternatively, for post-holders with a housing qualification; Chartered Membership of the Chartered Institute of Housing (MCIH) or demonstrable equivalent experience to be eligible to securing Chartered Membership status.

You will already have at least two years' of post-qualification experience in planning or housing, ideally within a planning policy or strategic housing environment and you will need to evidence a track record of working within a legislative/regulatory context and have a demonstrable understanding of assessing and meeting local housing needs. You must also hold a full UK driving licence.

You will identify with our organisational values of Pride, Ownership, Working Together and Ambition.

This is a full time, permanent post working 37 hours per week with occasional evenings and weekends for meetings, consultation and engagement events.

Flexible working friendly - we offer hybrid working, a generous flexi-time scheme, and opportunity to work with your team to establish working hours to enable you to maximise your work-life balance.

Our Benefits

Lancaster is a great place to work, as well as being part of something special you will also benefit from:

• Generous annual leave allowance
• Local Government Pension Scheme
• A range of employee benefits including discounted gym membership, cycle to work scheme, the opportunity to purchase extra time off, as well as discounts on days out, activities and retail.

Lancaster City Council has unanimously declared a climate emergency and will therefore work towards reducing carbon emissions to net-zero by 2030. As part of this role, you will be expected to participate and work towards reducing both carbon emissions and the impacts of climate change.

We are an Investor in People, Forces Friendly employer, and an Armed Forces Covenant committed organisation. We welcome applications from defence reserves and other members of our armed forces community. We are an inclusive employer and welcome applications from all parts of our community.

At Lancaster City Council we aim to have a diverse workforce that is representative of the district that we serve and provide a working environment where each employee feels able to bring their whole self to work. We welcome applications from all sections of our community and provide several supportive and inclusive workplace networks and safe spaces for employees to feel connected. Our workplace wellbeing strategy drives our commitment to staff wellbeing initiatives and ensuring that our organisation is a great place to work for all.

We are a disability confident committed employer.

Please note that due to the volume of applications we receive we are unable to update all applicants individually. If you do not receive a response from us within 2 weeks of the closing date, then your application will have unfortunately been unsuccessful in progressing to interview.

Interview date: TBC

Salary range

• £35,412 - £40,777 per year

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