As I am finding, Planning is a very busy industry. When busy, people often lose track of why they do the work they do. So, I ‘encouraged’ PAS folk to down tools (well, stop typing) and consider their employment for a few minutes.
The result was that we #loveplanning. Okay, no one actually mentioned the hashtag – but this is a good way to group together the love for our work using social media. Over the next few weeks we shall be tweeting just why we #loveplanning. You can follow us via @pas_team. Feel free to tweet us and share why you do using this hashtag.
Twitter doesn’t leave too much space for words, so some more lengthy reasons are below. Again, feel free to add your own via the comments box at the bottom of this blog.
We #loveplanning and we hope you do too.
Alice Lester: I #loveplanning as you get to dream things, think about things, improve things, deliver things. Your decisions can have a lasting impact on many people, both now and in the future. It is a force for good, managing change in a way that improves the environment.
Martin Hutchings: I #loveplanning as it can’t be tamed; it divides and unites, is the problem and solution, the question and answer, the beauty and the beast. But we try… we try…
Nicholas Wardle: I #loveplanning as the people are so passionate about what we do. There’s a real drive to improve the world in which we live in – and few other industries can shape our surrounds as much.
Phillipa Silcock: I #loveplanning as it reconciles need, demand and willingness in a real world jigsaw. There’s no picture to refer to or need to negotiate with each piece; persuade them to fit together.
Planning Advisory Service 
Misquote Nik! : It should have been
I #loveplanning as it reconciles need, demand and willingness in a real world jigsaw. There’s no picture to refer to. You need to negotiate with each piece; persuade them to fit together.
I think that its the fact that for plans to be both good and deliverable, the multitude of stakeholders who are involved in owning, living in and beside, funding, and working in any place have to be brought together (somehow) to see benefit in the overall picture of place. That process of dreaming (cf Alice above) and then of persuading all the interests to work together to create a better place is what made working in a council so interesting and challenging.
Just to add another point – negotiating with present interests to make provision for future people – thats the fourth dimension of the real life jigsaw.