The Power of Plans - Dublin

The Power of Plans - Dublin

Author: Samuel Stafford July 1, 2023 Duration: 53:59

This episode is part of an international triumvirate, which has been put together with the help of old friend of the podcast, Ian Wray, and new friend of the podcast, Lucy Natarajan.

Ian, regular listeners will know, is a Professor at the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place at University of Liverpool.

Lucy is one of the editors of the Built Environment journal, a co-founder of Place Alliance, an Associate Lecturer at Oxford Brookes and an Associate Professor at UCL’s Bartlett School of Planning.

Ian and Lucy compiled the December 2022 edition of Built Environment and sought in so doing to explore ‘the power of plans’. This, they endeavoured to do, by way of a series of internationally commissioned case studies on grand plans that have been shown to work, asking how they worked and why. In this series Sam Stafford explores with Lucy and Ian three of those case studies.

In this episode, in a conversation recorded remotely at the end of November 2022, Sam and Lucy to Jim Steer about Dublin, to which, by common consensus, town planning in the 1960s and 1970s was not kind, with large-scale road building to serve car-dependent suburbs and little investment in public transport. In the early 1990s though an EU-funded Dublin Transportation Initiative put the city on a new path…

Some accompanying reading.

Built Environment – The Power of Plans

https://www.alexandrinepress.co.uk/built-environment/power-plans

The Dublin Transportation Initiative

https://voicesofsteer.steergroup.com/post/102i3aj/the-importance-of-process-in-planning-the-dublin-transportation-initiative-par

Jim recommends the following by Frank McDonald:

  • The Destruction of Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1985
  • Saving the City, Tomar, 1989
  • Ireland's Earthen Houses (jointly with Peigin Doyle), A&A Farmar, 1997
  • The Ecological Footprint of Cities (editor), International Institute for the Urban Environment, 1998
  • The Daily Globe: Environmental change, the public and the media (contributor), Earthscan, 2000
  • The Construction of Dublin, Gandon Editions, 2000

Some accompanying listening.

Jim’s recommendation.

Summer in Dublin by Bagatelle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMhWll_mfGk

Ian’s recommendation.

The Maids of Mitchelstown by The Boty Band

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVE7gZ1GnBc

Sam’s recommendation

Big by Fontaines DC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiLk6G5N-3Y

50 Shades T-Shirts!

If you have listened to Episode 45 of the 50 Shades of Planning Podcast 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: http://samuelstafford.blogspot.com/2021/07/50-shades-of-planning-t-shirts.html


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: 100

50 Shades of Planning
Podcast Episodes
What is really wrong with the Habitats Regulations? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:08:08
DEFRA recently launched a consultation on significant changes to it’s guidance on how Habitat Regulations Assessments should be carried out, which comes at an interesting time. It is, firstly, not long since DEFRA announ…
Some Things Just Take Time [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:24
Sam Stafford was in London recently and took the opportunity to catch up with old friends of the podcast Mike Kiely, Annie Gingell, Andrew Taylor and Iain Thomson, and new friend of the podcast Claire Tester. In a conver…
New Towns: Practicalities & Placemaking [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:18
New Towns are back in the news because the Government has announced the first formal step in creating the next generation of them with the launch of a public consultation on the draft New Towns Programme and its environm…
All Around the World - The Netherlands [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:40
This is the third of a series of episodes being led by the oldest friend of the podcast, Paul Smith. Paul put it to Sam Stafford that debates about the planning system in England tend, for the most part, to focus solely…
Appeal Ready [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:44
Sam Stafford was in Manchester last week and took the opportunity to catch up with friends of the podcast Lisa Tye, Andrew Johnston and Louise Fountain to discuss some of the issues of the day. In a conversation recorded…
Hitting the High Notes - Catriona Riddell [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:22:25
Strategic planning, as Sam Stafford said in the introduction to episode number 157, is back. That episode looked at what shape it is in right now. What have authorities been able to do whilst awaiting the consolidation o…
We❤️Planning [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:31
Sam Stafford was in Birmingham recently and took the opportunity to record the first ‘catch up’-style episode with some of his friends working in the West Midlands. In a conversation recorded at PodHaus studios, Kathryn…
How Does Bad Policy Get Made? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:07:34
In October 2025 Sam Stafford came across a blog by Jack Airey, who is now a Director at Public First but was the Head of Planning at Policy Exchange and subsequently spent a few years inside Number 10 as a Special Adviso…
The Return of Strategic Planning [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:29
Strategic planning is back. What do we know? We know that Policy PM1 of the revised draft NPPF anticipates the move towards national coverage of Spatial Development Strategies (SDSs), as promised by the end of the parlia…
🏆The #Planoraks Awards 2025🏆 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:22:58
This is the second of Sam Stafford's seasonal offerings which serve as a review of another exciting year in the fast-paced, ever-changing, rock and roll world of town and country planning. Once again Zack Simons kindly b…