East Herts’ Director of Place, Sara Saunders, on building planning resilience

Members of the Hertfordshire Infrastructure and Development Board (HIDB) gathered virtually for the next installment in our members lunch and learn webinars.

Hosted by Joseph Baum of Meeting Place, the session was led by Sara Saunders, Director for Place at East Herts District Council and chair of the Hertfordshire Planning Group, who shared her perspective on how we can build greater planning resilience in Hertfordshire.

This session focused on a critical theme raised time and again in HIDB meetings: the resilience of the planning system in Hertfordshire. With local government resourcing pressures growing, the webinar was an opportunity to pause, reflect on progress since the inception of the planning resilience task force in 2022 and invite fresh thinking from our members.

Why planning resilience matters

From housing delivery to net zero targets, a functional and well-resourced planning system is the bedrock of Hertfordshire’s growth. Over the past few years, planning departments across the county, like many elsewhere, have grappled with capacity challenges, staff turnover and growing workloads.

It was in response to these concerns that the planning resilience task force was created in 2022, bringing together local authorities, private sector partners and educational institutions to explore collaborative solutions.

A look back: what’s been achieved

• Exploring joint services — Initial efforts focused on improving efficiency through joint working. A coalition of willing councils, across East Herts, Dacorum, St Albans and Hertfordshire County Council, piloted work on a shared validation service for planning applications. This practical collaboration led to real outputs: aligned validation checklists, shared good practice and discussions on pooling IT systems.
• Introducing AI in planning — One of the more exciting updates is the use of AI technology, specifically the Agile Applications auto validator tool, being piloted by St Albans City and District Council. The tool uses AI to assess planning applications at the point of submission, reducing invalid applications and freeing up officer time. With more councils showing interest, this could be a county-wide opportunity.
• Supporting recruitment and retention — Recognising the need to make planning careers in Hertfordshire more attractive, the group has also piloted: A county-wide mentoring scheme, pairing planners with mentors from both public and private sectors, Two successful planning symposiums to encourage CPD and cross-authority collaboration and A lunch and learn CPD programme spotlighting local innovations and peer-to-peer learning
• Laying the groundwork for promotion and outreach — Groundwork has been laid to develop county-wide promotional materials for schools, careers fairs and early-career professionals. Oakland College supported a mapping of career entry points, but it was highlighted that more work is needed to push this element forward.

Where we go next: a call for collaboration

Sara was clear that the work to date has laid strong foundations, but ongoing delivery is limited by resource constraints. The task now is to refresh, reinvigorate and expand efforts with more support from more HIDB members.

The following questions were posed to members for feedback and future input:

• What are your experiences of planning resourcing across Hertfordshire?
• How can the public and private sectors work better together to support planning teams?
• What practical support or development opportunities can your organisation offer?

What you can do as members

This work is by no means complete and your contributions are critical. Whether offering mentoring, funding CPD sessions, hosting secondments or simply sharing insights, the HIDB community can play a vital role in building the resilient and high-performing planning system Hertfordshire needs.

If you weren’t able to attend the session live, email us and we can share a recorded webinar. Please do consider how your organisation can support the next phase of this work; we’d love to discuss more at our next members meeting in September.

For more information or to share your ideas, please get in touch with Joseph Baum at Meeting Place – josephbaum@meeting-place.uk

HIDB lunch and learn webinars are exclusive to our members. To learn more about the benefits of becoming a member or to learn more about HIDB, please visit: https://hidb.co.uk/membership/