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No Planners, No Progress: The Hidden Crisis in Delivering Green Energy

by Neil Harris, Senior Lecturer at Cardiff University’s School of Geography and Planning

Why Wales Needs More Planners

It is four years since Welsh Government published ‘Future Wales 2040’ as the National Development Framework for Wales. Future Wales was an important landmark in the planning system and sets an ambitious agenda for planning. To what extent can the planning system support the delivery of ecologically resilient and low carbon places? Can it deliver the social, economic and environmental infrastructure Wales needs?

In discussion with people outside of Wales I regularly hear positive feedback about the policy agenda set for the planning system in Wales. So, what then is the issue? The continuing challenge for the planning system in Wales is delivery and what happens on the ground. Resource and capacity constraints are significant with public sector funding challenges and local planning authorities finding it difficult to recruit and retain sufficient planners to enable projects to progress. We are seeing increasing recognition that better resourcing of the planning system is essential to delivery of the development and infrastructure needed at all scales.

The Skills Gap in Green Energy Planning

The planning system can often be a site of conflicting views and opinions. For example, local communities can sometimes resist development and new homes if they feel that this will put further pressure on local services. People express different views about how we should best meet our energy needs. The planning system – and the planners working in it – have an essential role in balancing all of these different interests. However, those working within the system agree that we need more planners to make the system work – and those planners working in the system need skills, training and development in important areas outlined in Future Wales and other national and local policies. There is a strong consensus across public, private and third sectors that collaboration is needed to make the planning system work for communities.

Supporting the Next Generation of Planners

I have worked in planning education for 25 years and I have seen first hand those students who ‘switch on’ to the value of a career in planning and shaping places. Some people decide early on that they wish to become a planner, while others come later in the day to realise that planning is a career for them, sometimes even after a brief career in another field. The presence in Wales of a university planning school has also become even more important with an increasingly devolved planning system working to a distinct set of priorities.

I am therefore delighted that Bute Energy has initiated a bursary scheme to enable people to study planning at masters level at Cardiff University. The bursaries enable people to study planning full-time pr part-time on a professionally-accredited postgraduate course – being one of the fastest pathways to increasing planners working in the system. The bursaries are also a key part of working in partnership between companies, universities, and built and natural environment professions.

The Bute Energy Bursary is already making a difference with Nia Williams and Ella Davies being the first recipients of the bursary and studying on the MSc Spatial Planning and Development. Nia and Ella both come to planning from educational backgrounds in geography and are exploring various subjects and modules through their course, including site planning, renewable energy planning, and community engagement.

They will in the next six months hopefully be practising their skills and understanding in places and communities across Wales – stepping into future green energy jobs where their expertise will support a more sustainable built environment.

The Bute Energy bursaries in planning will be important in:

  • Promoting greater awareness of the opportunities for planners to work in the renewable energy sector

  • Building relationships between higher education and the renewables sector, including enhancing the profile of the sector in the curriculum and creating opportunities for practical experience

  • Providing financial support to those who wish to develop their career and may not have had resources to support postgraduate study

Cardiff University students awarded bursaries

The first two students from Cardiff University’s Planning School to receive a bursary from us at Bute Energy share their career ambitions for in Welsh renewables.

Meet the Planners
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