Lichfield District Council has launched a ‘planning school’ for apprentice officers as part of measures to boost skills and improve services.
Three officers – Jessica Cliffe, Katherine Harvey and Emily Ozwell - have enrolled on the University of Westminster’s Master’s Apprenticeship degree course in Urban and Regional Planning.
They join fellow officers James Hyde and Tom Watts who have just started their second year of studies for the same qualification at the University of Birmingham.
The three-year courses are designed to give apprentices the knowledge, understanding and skills necessary to practice professionally as a town planner.
They are equivalent to a traditional postgraduate degree and see the apprentices work a minimum of 30 hours per week and study part-time.
Upon completing the course, the five will have taken large strides towards becoming chartered professionals with the Royal Town Planning Institute.
The local authority hopes enhancing the skills of the officers will help future-proof the Development Management Service, alongside other measures including the introduction of a fast-track applications service for householder applications and proactive actions to reset and improve the time taken to determine planning applications.
Artemis Christophi, who heads up Planning Transformation and Management at the Council, said: “I am thrilled to be able to have launched our new and exciting planning school which has supported and brought forward our new cohort of planning apprentices to Lichfield District Council.
“We are a disruptive council – shaking up how Local Government operates and delivers planning apprenticeship programmes. We do things differently!
“We are very proud of our new relationship with the University of Westminster and continued relationship with Birmingham University, in support of our new programme.”
He added: “The initiative is among the improvements we are delivering to safeguard and improve the Development Management Service for residents and applicants, which helps make Lichfield District a more attractive place to invest, live and work in.”
Officer James Hyde said: “The opportunity presented to us by Lichfield District Council to train as young professionals in further education has been fantastic and one that I hope continues.
“As we are local to the area, by gaining more skills and strengthening our knowledge of the planning system, we hope to help Lichfield become an even better place to live, work and visit in the future.”
