Senior Planning Consultant

Location: Birmingham in line with our Agile Working Policy. You will need to be able to work from our Birmingham office as often as business needs require, and be open to flexible working hours.

Salary: Competitive

TerraQuest Solutions Ltd is an award-winning and market-leading specialist provider of planning, land, property, and business solutions. We are an established and trusted organisation that is renowned for its expertise in providing innovative and cost-effective solutions to both public and private sectors. Our team delivers bespoke, flexible, and efficient services through a process-orientated delivery structure. We pride ourselves on strong customer relationships evidenced by the high proportion of referrals and repeat business.

We are a Living Wage Foundation accredited employer, committed to supporting the well-being and development of all our people. With competitive salaries, enhanced Family Friendly policies; a fabulous suite of benefits (including: Pension; Life Assurance; Employee Assistance Programme; option to buy additional annual leave in addition to 25 days plus Bank Holidays); true flexibility with our Agile Working approach, and superb training and development opportunities, we really care about our team!

Due to a period of sustained growth, we are looking to recruit a Planning Consultant to join our expanding Professional Services Team delivering a unique set of specialist planning services to planning professionals, developers, local planning authorities, applicants and the public.

Reporting to the Principal Planning Consultant and working within the Planning Services Team, the Senior Planning Consultant will be primarily responsible for providing expert advice, guidance and making informed assessments and recommendations to a range of customers, including users of TerraQuest's national Planning Portal.

As part of our Agile Working Policy, we are seeking individuals who are open to working outside of traditional office hours when required, to extend our service offerings to customers, including weekday mornings, evenings and at weekends. In return, we offer flexibility to help you balance your commitments inside and outside of work.

• Providing on-line/remote planning advice and guidance on general and specific planning matters.
• Providing support for the wider Planning Services team, answering queries in support of the Planning Guidance Service and Local Authority work.
• Where required, to prepare for customer meetings by accessing local planning policy and history documents from the Local Planning Authority website, in context of the written request received.
• Where required providing a brief written summary of the meeting and, once quality assured, submit to the applicant.
• Where required for Planning Guidance Service or Site Search services, providing a detailed written Planning Consultancy report to include reference to planning policy, planning history, planning constraints, general advice and recommendations.
• Where appropriate, to recommend and facilitate referral of customers to additional services to assist with their enquiries.
• Completing delegated and committee planning application reports in accordance with the company's agreed Key Performance Indicators, including Household Residential Extensions, Lawful Development Certificates, Prior Notifications, Advertisement Consents and Changes of Use
• Where required, preparing documents and forms in support of customer's planning application submissions. This may include undertaking site visits to survey sites and preparing plans where required.
• Where appropriate, to recommend and facilitate referral of customers to additional services to assist with their enquiries.
• Effectively communicating and negotiating with applicants and agents with regards to planning applications, planning queries and post-refusal decision advice.
• Using back-office systems to update applications, compile reports and record details of site visits and the evaluation process
• Updating customer enquiry database in accordance with key performance indicators
• Attending and reporting into monthly team meetings and weekly one to one case conferences
• To follow instructions as stated by Principal Planning Officer and meet all daily, weekly and monthly KPI targets
• Performing Management/Peer Review sign-off of team planning application reports and monitoring and improving quality of reports, where required.
• Holding regular case meetings with team members to monitor and promote individual performance and provide technical guidance and advice.
• Providing planning subject matter expertise to customers and the business, and to assist with business development activities of the Planning Service.
• Ensuring a right first-time approach by maintaining high productivity, efficiency and effectiveness
• Meeting all daily production targets and update project documentation including Daily Production and Quality Logs.
• Undertaking any other tasks and duties within the scope and grade of the post.

The ideal candidate will hold a relevant BA degree or equivalent RTPI Certified Planning Course and have at least 2 years' experience within either a Local Planning Authority or Private Sector setting or a mix of both. Utilising excellent oral communication skills, you must be confident in dispensing advice and guidance to a range of professionals, customers and members of the public, and where necessary, dealing with difficult customers and achieving positive outcomes.

To complete planning applications and planning reports to strict deadlines, you must be able to demonstrate strong time management, an ability to work under pressure, and be able to plan the day's workload from the outset making appropriate adjustments when required within a production team environment. A focus on accuracy, productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness is essential.

The role will require liaising with both external and internal parties, negotiating with applicants and agents and communicating effectively with other members of the team. Therefore, you will possess excellent oral and written communication skills.

The role will require the skills to analyse plans and assess their acceptability against local, regional and national planning policy with the ability to communicate assessments and recommendation in clear, concise and accurate planning reports. The candidate will also possess an ability to keep up to date with current and emerging policy developments at local, regional, and national levels so that TerraQuest is in a strong position to benefit from existing policies and potential changes as well as a commitment to continuing professional development.

It will also be desirable to have experience of leadership within a planning team, providing management and guidance to junior planning officers/consultants along with eligibility for membership of the RTPI. A full driving licence is also desirable.

Please apply for more information and please do not be put off if you do not have all of the experience and skills required. If you have the majority of skills and relevant experience, we would still like to hear from you!

TerraQuest Solutions Ltd is committed to promoting equality of opportunity in all aspects of employment and to creating an inclusive working environment in which individuals are treated with dignity and respect.

We ensure that no job applicant, employee, or worker receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of age, disability, gender reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race (including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin), religion or belief, political opinion, sex, or sexual orientation.

TerraQuest Solutions Ltd operates in compliance with the Fair Employment and Treatment (Northern Ireland) Order 1998. We monitor the composition of our workforce in accordance with the Fair Employment (Monitoring) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1999, and where applicable, submit annual monitoring returns to the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI). All monitoring information is held securely and processed under the legal basis of compliance with a statutory obligation, in accordance with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. We do not rely on employee consent and ensure all personal data is treated with the utmost confidentiality and integrity.

TerraQuest aims to use this data to help identify and address any patterns of underrepresentation and to inform positive action measures where appropriate, fostering a workplace culture that embraces diversity and fair participation.