50 Shades of Planning

Mar 29 2025 136 ep. 55 mins 154
50 Shades of Planning Podcast artwork

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.

Sam is on Bluesky (@samuelstafford.bsky.social) and Instagram (@samuel__stafford), and his blogs can be found here: http://samuelstafford.blogspot.com (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 [email protected].

Why Fifty Shades? Well, planning is not a black and white endeavour. There are at least fifty shades in between....

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Back in Black

Mar 29 2025 100 mins  
The fast-paced, ever-changing, rock and roll world of town and country planning has been especially fast-paced, ever-changing and rock and roll of late. How then to try to catch up? Sam Stafford thought that the best way of doing so was to reprise the ‘Labour of Love’ episode that he published back in August of last year. Here then you will hear elements of nine conversations

A Brief History of Planning 2010-2024

Oct 19 2024 65 mins  
Back in March 2024 friend of the podcast Catriona Riddell gave a lecture at UCL’s Bartlett School of Planning that she called ‘Strategic Planning in England - Where did we go so wrong?’. Sam Stafford couldn’t be there that night, but Catriona shared her slides on LinkedIn and they read to Sam almost like a ‘Brief History of Planning 2010-2024’, which he thought a good

100 Days of Labour

Oct 12 2024 64 mins  
Saturday 12 October 2024 marks 100 days of the new Labour Government. In anticipation of this milestone Landmark Chambers and Town Legal hosted a seminar in London this week to provide an in-depth review of Labour's first 100 days in power and the impact on planning law and policy. The session was recorded so that Sam Stafford could share it by way of the 50 Shades podcast and p

Not the NPPF

Oct 05 2024 52 mins  
Last week, on NPPF deadline day, Sam Stafford was in Manchester and took the opportunity to catch up with friends of the podcast Katie Wray, David Diggle, Greg Dickson, Mark Parkinson and Claire Petricca-Riding at the studios of Reform Radio. Conscious that the podcast has covered the revised NPPF in episodes 128 and 131, they talked about some of the other current hot planning to

The YIMBY Crowd

Sep 21 2024 53 mins  
"‘The moment has come’: pro-building Labour YIMBYs are set to raise the roof" was the title of a piece in the Observer ahead of the Labour Party Conference (link below). For many of the most ambitious of the new cohort of Labour MPs, this is the fashionable campaign of the moment, not for economic growth but as a social justice movement – and one that many of the new millen

The Masterplan

Sep 07 2024 55 mins  
If you have listened to episodes 125 and 128 you will know Sam Stafford sought to cover, pre-publication, what could and should be in the new version of NPPF. With the consultation deadline now starting to loom large, this episode seeks to cover what is actually in it. Sam was in London earlier this week and caught up with friends of the podcast Andrew Taylor, Hashi Mohamed, Vicky

Hitting the High Notes - Mike Best

Aug 31 2024 64 mins  
In Hitting the High Notes episodes Sam Stafford chats to preeminent figures in the planning and property sectors about the six planning permissions or projects that helped to shape them as professionals. And, so that Listeners can get to know people a little better personally, for every project or stage of their career Sam also asks his guests for a piece of music that reminds them

To rebuild or to retrofit?

Aug 17 2024 50 mins  
To rebuild or to retrofit? That is the question posed by former Secretary of State Michael Gove’s intervention in planning applications for the redevelopment of M&S’ Oxford Street store and the former Museum of London building. According to the Climate Change Committee, direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions from buildings account for 23% of the UK total. How can we

Labour of Love

Aug 03 2024 104 mins  
Sam Stafford has mentioned previously that the podcast would consider the new Government’s reform agenda and this is an attempt at doing so. The specifics of the NPPF consultation will be covered in more depth in due course, but what Listeners will hear in this jam-packed extravaganza of an episode is an exploration of that reform agenda in it’s broader sense. In anticipation

Let's get digital

Jul 20 2024 81 mins  
Long-serving Listeners might recall that for Episode 6 of 50 Shades of Planning Sam Stafford published a chat with Euan Mills, then of the Connected Places Catapult, on the potential for digital innovation, urban data, and user-centred design to improve the planning system. Euan, now CEO and co-founder of Blocktype, got in touch with Sam Stafford earlier this year and asked if he