A MAN who spent a decade as chief planning officer for Stroud District Council spoke to the Gazette about his 10 years helping shape the landscape of the area.

Philip Skill has, for the past decade, recommended approval or refusal on the most major planning applications to be submitted in the district.

After hanging up his planning hat and moving into a new area within the council, he spoke to us about his highs and lows in the job – offering a rarely-gleaned insight into the world of planning from the side of the planner.

Mr Skill, after working for 10 years in the planning department of Cotswold District Council for ten years, moved to SDC in 2005 when the department in Stroud was in special measures.

In the position of “outsider” he took a fresh look at the department and restored it to form, taking it out of special measures within a period of just 12 months – all while earning a degree in the subject in his evenings and weekends.

Speaking about his approach to the role, Mr Skill said he gave a great deal of credence to speaking clearly and seeing an application as a whole.

“A lot of people get hung up on the little details of a planning application but I think it’s important to look at the big picture,” he said.

“And I’ve always tried to be open and speak clearly to people. Some planners like to hide behind jargon but I think the public have every right to understand the process themselves and not just leave it in our hands.”

It was this mindset that saw Mr Skill support moving development control committee meetings to evenings so that people working 9 to 5 could attend and represent themselves, slightly readjusting a balance that sits in favour of developers.

The Gazette asked Mr Skill what advice he would give to those objecting development, like those in the village of Kingswood near Wotton-under-Edge, where many residents feel under-siege from large planning applications.

He said: “The people in Kingswood are very intelligent and organised and I would recommend anybody objecting to development to start an action group [like Keep Kingswood a Village] “An organised group is far more likely to get members of the planning department round the table for a frank discussion.

“Also, having some kind of leadership and a single spokesperson is a big advantage. Sometimes we’ll have hundreds of letters of objection and they’ll all be about different things, so a level of focus makes a big difference.”

Speaking on the downside of the job Mr Skill touched on personal abuse and false accusations of corruption from disgruntled residents, an unfortunately common feature of a job where pleasing everyone is an impossibility.

But his high points are what the Gazette was most interested in – and Gloucester Services in Brookthorpe is his crowning glory.

“Nobody believes me when I tell them I was recommending refusal until weeks before it went to committee, but I didn’t think it was appropriate until the Government's Highways Agency old us there was demonstrable need which changed everything,” he said.

“But despite recommending refusal we put a lot of time and effort into the design, because it is always good to have a plan B; you never know if a development may be approved by councillors or go through on appeal.

“I’m very proud of that and it looked exactly as I imagined it would. That’s the development that I’ll take my grandchildren to see when I have them.”

He is also very proud of his role on BBC2 documentary series The Planners – another feather in his cap in the push for more transparency and openness in the world of planning.

Mr Skill is still working within the council as a business consultant – helping update systems within social housing.

And he hasn’t stopped imparting his planning wisdom to people who do not work in the field. He now blogs and produces Youtube videos on the subject, which can be found at gobbyplanner.weebly.com.