Joshua Singh is Regeneration Team Leader at Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council and RTPI National Young Planner 2023.
Anyone who follows me on Linkedin knows I use the word whirlwind to describe life in the world of planning and 2024 as RTPI Young Planner of the Year was just that! It’s been a privilege and an honour to represent our institution and its members on an international, national and regional scale.
The highlight of the Year for me has to be a culmination of the time spent supporting outgoing President Lindsey Richards FRTPI and Dr Victoria Hills MRTPI FICE to champion planning within the political, private and public sector arenas of our profession.
Whooping, hollering, and Speech of Arrested Development closing the APA National Planning Conference in Minneapolis, will certainly be forever etched into the memory banks. Not only for the shapes being cut by the Global Planning Network leads on the front row, no names mentioned, but also the message of collective, bold and empowered leadership that is required for planners to consistently bring about change to the world around us.
Josh meets Speech Thomas (Arrested Development) who gave an inspiring speech at the conference
Victoria, Lindsey and I outside the Convention Centre at NPC24
I have also had the opportunity to speak at numerous events this year and was pleased to support the Planning Advisory Service at the Pathways to Planning Graduate Launch Event in March. I gave a packed room full of the next generation of planning leaders my thoughts and experiences of the rewarding life in local government planning regeneration and the science and art of planning being a craft we all learn through school. An area which more lobbying and reform of the language within our curriculum may begin to draw out the fact that planning is deeply seeded into our early years at school but not a message which is forthcoming. Slight changes to the language and message our brilliant teachers use about the role of planning in society will unlock the talent pipeline for a generation.
The theme of planning education was followed up in September where I was invited to join the closing panel for the UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference 2024 and speak about the Future of Planning Education. For me the approach I have been urging throughout my year has been for planners to think deeper, write without fear and speak with boldness about our big ideas. For me with NPPF reform, tinkering around with the system will only go so far, but the more we collectively begin to co-create the visions and stories of the future that will inspire generations to come, the more we’ll inspire the next generation of master planners and embody the benefits of a vision led planning system, led by imagination, not hindered by regulatory fear.
It's also been a fantastic year on the regional scale here in the West Midlands! Four out of four national finalists and winners! Clearly something is brewing in the waters up here, manifesting itself in award winning best practice of how we use the world of planning to better society, build quality homes, create sustained flows of positive commerce and grow a sustainable, resilient and flourishing economy. None more so than the work we do at Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council evidenced by becoming the National Local Planning Authority of the Year for the second time, the only Planning Team to have done so, winning the inaugural award, and then again exactly a decade later, on the Borough’s 50th anniversary – the art of strategic, vision led master planning on show for all to see!
Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council celebrate their win
Frances Keenan is taking over the batton as Young Planner of the Year 2024
Finally, I want to say a massive thanks to all of the RTPI team behind the scenes. Everyone will see the visibility of Victoria, Lindsey and the senior officers around the nations but that is all sustained by the army of volunteers across the country, the regional teams and young planner networks that are growing from strength to strength and the staff co-ordinating the institute to a position of great influence. The next year promises to be a transformational one for many of us as the mission delivery mindset kicks into action to deliver ambitious challenges of growth and housebuilding. Planning and strategic planning are central to this and delivering the collective, envisioned future we all aspire to achieve. It takes planners, and it takes planners with a vision and a plan and perhaps planners with some more whooping and hollering!
Interested in entering the Young Planner of the Year category?
You still have time to enter the RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence 2025. The entry deadline is 13 March.
The Julie Cowans Memorial Trust
The Julie Cowans award of £1000 is given to the national winner of the Young Planner of the Year category at our RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence ceremony.
To find out more about Julie Cowans and why this prize money is given to the national Young Planner of the Year and to hear what the previous recipients of this award say about how the money has helped them in their Young Planner year, follow the link below:
The Julie Cowan Award
The Julie Cowan Award
The £1,000 Julie Cowans Award is presented annually to the national winner of the Young Planner of The Year at our Awards for Planning Excellence ceremony in November.
The Julie Cowans Memorial Trust was founded by her family and friends to honour her legacy and contributions to the housing sector. As part of its mission, the Trust provides grants and bursaries each year to support the personal development of young people across the UK. In 2021, the Trust introduced this annual financial award to assist the national Young Planner of The Year during their ambassadorial year.
To highlight the impact of this funding, we reached out to past recipients to share their experiences and how the award has supported them:
Frances Keenan (2024). “I am envisaging a number of other expenses that go alongside being Young Planner of the Year. Food, drinks, suitcase (for the America trip), outfits for awards dinners etc. I know these things might sound quite trivial, but they do start to add up over 12 months, so I am very thankful for the bursary funding.”
Joshua Singh (2023) said: “Firstly, the award of £1000 is a great gesture and the Julie Cowans Trust continues to provide young planners, and in my case, an opportunity to support the RTPI Ambassador Team throughout the year, specifically with supporting my travel expenses and additional networking opportunities at the American National Planning Conference in Minneapolis.”
Simeon Shtebunaev (2022) said: “I used an amount of the money in helping me pay for books (on planning for my PhD).”
Ryan Walker (2021) said: “The vast majority of the bursary went towards public speaking coaching sessions. This was something I previously struggled with and so it was highly valuable for my term as Young Planner of the Year given the number of events that I had to attend and speak on behalf of the Institute.”
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