Response 3837892

Response to request for information

Reference

3837892

Response date

26 November 2025

Request

1. If your Council has a Conservation and Design team of any description, that is consulted on planning applications involving constraints such as listed buildings and conservation areas, and what this team is called.
2. If ‘yes’, what training or qualifications, if any, are prerequisites for an officer working in this team. 
3. If it is disclosable, if I could please have an email address for this team, as I would like to send a short survey related to my dissertation some time next summer for any officers who might be interested in completing it.

Response

1. If your Council has a Conservation and Design team of any description, that is consulted on planning applications involving constraints such as listed buildings and conservation areas, and what this team is called.
   • We do have a ‘team’ in the sense we have conservation staff and more than one of them. We have a single full time conservation officer and my own role acts as line manager for that post. Whilst my role is split across Planning Enforcement, Conservation and Planning Contributions (s106 and CIL) my professional background and training is in conservation. As such I would suggest the team consists of around 1.2 FTE focusing on Conservation and consultations on planning applications, together with acting as direct case officers for LBC’s and some planning applications where the main issues are likely to be heritage linked. The team doesn’t really have a name as there are only 2 of us, and my role is split across so many diverse functions. If our team has a name it is “Monitoring and Implementation” but that doesn’t really tell you what the functions within the team are.
2. If ‘yes’, what training or qualifications, if any, are prerequisites for an officer working in this team.
   • In terms of pre-requirements, when we last advertised for a postholder we advertised as seeking someone with a degree in a planning or architecture related degree, or relevant experience in a conservation role. In more recent years we have often needed to be increasingly flexible when recruiting.
3. If it is disclosable, if I could please have an email address for this team, as I would like to send a short survey related to my dissertation some time next summer for any officers who might be interested in completing it.
   • I'm more than happy to receive a survey, I'm sure our in-post conservation officer would also be happy to assist in completing a questionnaire, time permitting.