Planorama

Planorama

Author: Samuel Stafford October 25, 2025 Duration: 1:04:21

In between movin' and shakin' in The Big Smoke recently Sam Stafford took the opportunity to meet a few friends of the podcast at Soho Radio Studios to pick out the highlights from another exciting few weeks in the fast-paced, ever-changing, rock and roll world of town and country planning.

Sam caught up with, and the episode features, old friends of the podcast Simon Ricketts, Annie Gingell, Shelly Rouse and Hana Loftus, and new friend of the podcast Hayley White.

Over the course of an hour or so they talked about affordable housing delivery, specifically the constraints on the use of grant funding by RPs and the (then) rumoured changes to affordable housing thresholds in London. They talked about C.G. Fry and the implications of that Supreme Court decision. They talked in the context of a second letter from the Housing & Planning Minister to the Planning Inspectorate about local plan coverage and whether stepped trajectories should be seen a pragmatic response to changing circumstances or an exercise in cynical can-kicking. And towards the end they touched on National Development Management Policies.

Some accompanying reading.

London Stalling

Will Labour’s London housing boost plan work?

Residential development in London

Local Plan examinations: letter to the Chief Executive of the Planning Inspectorate (October 2025)

Why stepped housing requirements aren’t justified and should be avoided

What does planning permission *really* get you: CG Fry in the Supreme Court — #planoraks

Autumn Budget 2025 - LPDF submission to HMT

Some accompanying viewing.

Panorama – The race to build 1.5 million homes

The Planners are Coming

Some accompanying listening.

The Rolling Stones -Jigsaw Puzzle

Any other business.

50 Shades T-Shirts!

If you have listened to Episode 45 of the 50 Shades of Planning you will have heard Clive Betts say that...

'In the Netherlands planning is seen as part of the solution. In the UK, too often, planning is seen as part of the problem'.

Sam said in reply that that would look good on a t-shirt and it does. Further details can be found here.

Sam is on Bluesky and Instagram. His blog contains a link to his newsletter.


Samuel Stafford hosts 50 Shades of Planning, a podcast that digs into the often perplexing world of the English planning system. Rather than offering dry policy lectures, these conversations embrace the sector's inherent complexities and occasional absurdities. The aim is to provide a wide-ranging view, bringing in diverse voices from across the fields of planning, property, design, and development. You'll hear from practitioners, thinkers, and critics, each sharing their unique experiences and perspectives on how places are shaped. A recurring series within the podcast, titled 'Hitting The High Notes', features in-depth discussions with leading figures, examining pivotal career moments and influential projects. These talks are structured around six key planning milestones, offering a concrete framework for understanding professional journeys and systemic challenges. By weaving together themes from government, business, arts, and social sciences, this podcast reveals how planning sits at a crowded intersection of politics, economics, and community life. Tune in for thoughtful, sometimes surprising, explorations of the forces that decide what gets built, where, and why.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 164

50 Shades of Planning
Podcast Episodes
Hitting the High Notes - Ben Castell [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:56
Hitting The High Notes is town planning’s equivalent of Desert Island Discs. In these episodes Sam Stafford chats to preeminent figures in the planning and property sectors about the six planning permissions or projects…
Fudge [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:28
"Thanks to our planning system, we have nowhere near enough homes in the right places. People cannot afford to move to where their talents can be matched with opportunity. Businesses cannot afford to grow and create jobs…
Cracking the Code [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:25
“We should aspire to pass on our heritage to our successors, not depleted but enhanced. In order to do that, we need to bring about a profound and lasting change in the buildings that we build, which is one of the reason…
Hitting the High Notes - Victoria Hills [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:03
Hitting The High Notes is town planning’s equivalent of Desert Island Discs. In these episodes Sam Stafford chats to preeminent figures in the planning and property sectors about the six planning permissions or projects…
EA in the UK after the EU [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 56:18
As a 50 Shades of Planning Podcast listener you will be perceptive enough to have spotted that the United Kingdom has left the European Union. Town Planners will have noted in so doing that the regulatory regime for the…
Neutral Impact [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:47
Eutrophication might not have been a word that planners came across too often before November 2018, but many now know if they didn’t before then that it is the process by which nutrient-laden water encourages algae growt…
The Unearned Increment [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:10:33
Consensus between economists is rare, but almost all agree that there is a moral argument for the taxation of land. Planning reform, death and taxes have long been three of life’s certainties. Land taxation and the conce…
Can the British plan? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 56:29
'Can the British plan? Sometimes it seems unlikely. Across the world we see grand designs and visionary projects: new airport terminals, nuclear power stations, high-speed railways, and glittering buildings. It all seems…
Reflections on 2020 - Part 2 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:54
Is it right that old times be forgotten, asks Robert Burns in the opening line of Auld Lang Syne. Instinctively one might want to say yes to that insofar as 2020 is concerned. Much has been lost, but it’s also right to s…
Reflections on 2020 - Part 1 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:50
Little did Sam Stafford know when recording Episode 14 in Manchester at the end of February 2020 that every episode for the rest of the year, and who knows how far beyond, would need to be recorded remotely. This is the…