50 Shades of Planning
50 Shades of Planning is Sam Stafford’s attempt to explore the foibles of the English planning system and it's aim is to cover the breadth of the sector both in terms of topics of conversation and in terms of guests with different experiences and perspectives. 50 Shades episodes include 'Hitting The High Notes', which are a series of conversations with leading planning and property figures. The conversations take in the six milestone planning permissions or projects within a contributor’s career and for every project guests are invited to choose a piece of music that they were listening to at that time. Think Desert Island Discs, but for planners. 50 Shades episode also include the 'All Around the World' series, which is being led by friend of the podcast, Paul Smith. Paul put it to Sam that debates about the planning system in England tend, for the most part, to focus solely on the planning system in England. Planners here very seldom look to other countries for inspiration and ideas. Paul wanted to remedy that and so in this series he chats with planning professionals and academics from a number of countries to find out what works well there, what works less well, and what can be learnt. Sam is on Bluesky and Instagram, and his blogs can be found here (from where you can also sign up for his newsletter). The 50 Shades platforms are expressions of Sam's personal opinions, which may or may not represent the opinions of his past, present or future employers. 50 Shades of Planning is by planners and for planners and so if you would like to use the podcast or the YouTube channel for sharing anything you think that the sector needs to be talking about then do please feel free to get in touch with Sam via samstafford@hotmail.com. Why Fifty Shades? Well, town and country planning is very much not a black and white endeavour. There are at least fifty shades in between....
Episodes
This episode features the recording of an event hosted by Lorenzo Pandolfi and Simone Pagani in February 2026. Lorenzo and Simone invited Chris Katkowski and Russell Harris to tell the story of the Shard inquiry.
Chris and Russell, two of the most prominent KCs in the country, share their recollections of one of the most consequential planning inquires of modern times. They talk about the characters involved, what it is like to...
"The second (epochal change) is the technology revolution led by developments in artificial intelligence, which will change everything. I mean everything. There is no point in debating whether this technological revolution is a good or bad thing. Just know it is a ‘thing’. In fact, it is ‘the thing’. It will displace jobs, though creating new ones, but no one yet knows the full consequence. Companies and cou...
The role of local councillors in the planning system has been a familiar topic of conversation on the podcast in the context of, for example, overturning officer recommendations and the case for a national scheme of delegation. There is less talk about the role of MPs in the planning system, which is something that friend of the podcast Andrew Taylor wanted to remedy. This then is the first of what he and Sam Stafford hope will be ...
Sam Stafford was in Manchester recently and took the opportunity to catch up with friends of the podcast Charlotte Leach, Katie Wray, Claire Petricca-Riding and Paul Smith.
Their conversation, recorded at Reform Radio, was a good old fashioned 50 Shades-style ramblechat. They started with the local elections and then from Reform got on to planning reform and back again and before they knew it an hour had passed by.
Some accompany...
The 2026 local elections will likely turn out to be significant for a number of reasons. Westminster psychodrama aside though, one area of immediate interest, for example, is what the increased number of councils under no overall control will mean for local plan-making. That is a topic to which Sam Stafford hopes the podcast will return in due course. Of similar immediate interest is the possible impact upon local government reorga...
Sam Stafford was in Birmingham recently and took the opportunity to catch up with friends of the podcast Mike Best, Kathryn Ventham and Michelle Simpson-Gallego at PodHaus studios in Digbeth.
They talked about why the recent consultation on areas for producing Spatial Development Strategies seemed to generate more interest in the West Midlands than other parts of the country (an issue for which this episode has named); they talked...
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 announced that Natural England and the Environment Agency have been given a new mandate to “prioritise outcomes over process” and “speed up decision-making while maintaini...
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 conversation recorded at Soho Radio they chatted about a few of the hot topics in the fast-paced, ever-changing, rock and roll world of town and country planning right now.
They talked about the recent NPPF consultation...
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 environmental implications.
The consultation builds on the findings of the New Towns Taskforce report in September 2025 and invites views on how the New Towns Programme will o...
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 on the planning system in England. We very seldom look to other countries for inspiration and ideas.
Paul wanted to remedy that and so in this series he is chatting with planning professionals and academics from a...
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 at Reform Radio they talked about the imminent changes to appeal guidance; they talked about the design and placemaking PPG consultation; they talked about affordable housing delivery and the misalignment be...
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 of the Planning & Infrastructure Act, the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill?
What the sector did not know just a few weeks ago, but do now, are t...
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 Ventham, Myles Wild-Smith, Michelle Simpson-Gallego and Sam enjoyed a rambling conversation that takes in, amongst other things, the extent to which Grey Belt is driving the increase in planning applica...
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 Advisor to the Prime Minister. The opening line of Jack’s blog was ‘How does bad policy get made?’ and he writes about “the war of attrition that is Whitehall policymaking”; "backbench pressu...
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 parliamentary term, and clarifies their role, content, and relationship to other tiers of the development plan. SDSs are intended to be high-level documents focused on genuinely strategic, cross-boundary issues, leavin...
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 bestowed upon Sam the honour of announcing Zack's 2025 #Planoraks Awards on the podcast.
Sam met Zack at Soho Radio Studios where and he handed him six golden envelopes, which you will hear opened during their conv...
This episode sees the return of the 50 Shades of Planning Festive Christmas Quiz.
Sam Stafford got together with friends of podcast Mike Kiely, Catriona Riddell, Annie Gingell, Andrew Taylor, Nicola Gooch, Shelly Rouse, Ben Castell and Gilian Macinnes to review what has been another exciting year in the fast-paced, ever-changing, rock and roll world of town and country planning.
Sam Stafford was in Manchester recently and took the opportunity to catch up with old friend of the podcast Charlotte Leach and new friends of the podcast Andrew Johnston and Lisa Tye.
Over the course of an hour so they chatted about a few of the hot topics exercising the planning profession at minute. They talked about ‘the next phase of planning reform’ as set out in a written ministerial statement issued by the Secr...
Empirical evidence is starting to emerge, as speculated upon earlier in the year, that there will indeed be a significant increase in the number of planning applications being submitted this year, certainly for residential development and largely, it is held, driven by the introduction of Grey Belt. TerraQuest, the company behind the Planning Portal, has reported that the number of new homes for which planning permission was sought...
This is the second 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 on the planning system in England. Planners here very seldom look to other countries for inspiration and ideas.
Paul wanted to remedy that and so in this series he is chatting with planning professionals and acad...
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