National Highways welcomed a VIP visitor to meet face-to-face its team of planning professionals who are helping to shape the future of the nation’s roads network and beyond.
Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) President Sue Bridge met with the Midlands Spatial Planning team at the National Highways offices in Birmingham yesterday (Monday 9 October).
During the meeting, which included a call with other National Highways spatial planners across the country, she talked the importance of planning in an engineering environment and key issues in terms of infrastructure planning.
The president was also introduced to the next generation of planners, talking to a number of apprentices and also Assistant Spatial Planners who are studying for their Master’s degrees.
The visit came on the day that National Highways discovered it had been shortlisted for the In-house Planning Team of the Year category in the RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence 2023. The winners will be announced at an awards dinner in London on 21 November.
National Highways Head of Planning and Development, Victoria Lazenby, said:
“We were delighted to welcome such a leading figure in the world of planning to National Highways and this demonstrates the importance of the planning profession to public engineering companies such as ours.
“Our small but dedicated spatial planning team has responded to over 17,000 planning applications in the last five years as a statutory consultee – 98% within 21 days. We work with around 300 planning authorities in developing Local Plans and National Highways has had the most Development Consent Orders approved by the Planning Inspectorate of any applicant - 26 of our 31 submissions since April 2013.
“These are changing times for the highways industry and we are looking to the future with a greater emphasis on sustainable and active travel in all of our plans and our continuing drive towards net zero.
“Key to our future success will be greater partnership working with our stakeholders, supply chains and bodies such as RTPI. We were very grateful for Sue’s insight and look forward to further close working with the RTPI.”
Regarding the visit, RTPI President Sue Bridge commented:
“This trip has introduced me to dedicated professionals who play an integral role in shaping the future of our nation's infrastructure, whose commitment to planning is essential for the prosperity and sustainability of our communities.
“I am also pleased to have met the next generation of planners – the apprentices who will keep our roads safe, our cities efficient, and our environment protected. Their energy, fresh ideas, and enthusiasm for tackling the key issues of infrastructure planning are inspiring.”