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Hosted by Samuel Stafford · 🇺🇸 US · EN · 175 episodes
Established thought leaders with verified media credentials.
50 Shades of Planning is Sam Stafford’s attempt to explore the foibles of the English planning system and it's aim is to cover the breadth of the sector both in terms of topics of conversation and in terms of guests with different experiences and perspectives. 50 Shades episodes include 'Hitting The High Notes', which are a series of conversations with leading planning and property figures. The conversations take in the six milestone planning permissions or projects within a contributor’s career and for every project guests are invited to choose a piece of music that they were listening to at that time. Think Desert Island Discs, but for planners. 50 Shades episode also include the 'All Around the World' series, which is being led by friend of the podcast, Paul Smith . Paul put it to Sam that debates about the planning sys
Samuel Stafford hosts 50 Shades of Planning, a government show with 175 episodes published.
A couple of months ago Sam Stafford saw that Shaun Knights at Preston City Council and national vice chair of the Young Planning Officers Society (POS) had posted on LinkedIn encouraging nominations for POS’ ‘Emerging Pl
The role of local councillors in the planning system has been a familiar topic of conversation on the podcast in the context of, for example, overturning officer recommendations and the case for a national scheme of dele
Sam Stafford was in London recently and whilst there caught up with friends of the podcast Hana Loftus , Mike Kiely , Nicola Gooch , Simon Ricketts and Andrew Taylor . Hana is a Director at HAT Projects; Mike is a former
This is the fourth of a series of episodes being led by the oldest friend of the podcast, Paul Smith . Paul put it to Sam Stafford that debates about the planning system in England tend, for the most part, to focus solel
Sam Stafford was invited to a ProCon Leicestershire event in Leicester in October 2025 and also on the panel that evening was his old friend Grant Butterworth. Grant, Head of Planning at Leicester City Council, kindly in
This episode features the recording of an event hosted by Lorenzo Pandolfi and Simone Pagani in February 2026. Lorenzo and Simone invited Chris Katkowski and Russell Harris to tell the story of the Shard inquiry. Chris a
"The second (epochal change) is the technology revolution led by developments in artificial intelligence, which will change everything. I mean everything. There is no point in debating whether this technological revoluti
The role of local councillors in the planning system has been a familiar topic of conversation on the podcast in the context of, for example, overturning officer recommendations and the case for a national scheme of dele
Sam Stafford was in Manchester recently and took the opportunity to catch up with friends of the podcast Charlotte Leach , Katie Wray , Claire Petricca-Riding and Paul Smith . Their conversation, recorded at Reform Radio
The 2026 local elections will likely turn out to be significant for a number of reasons. Westminster psychodrama aside though, one area of immediate interest, for example, is what the increased number of councils under n
Sam Stafford was in Birmingham recently and took the opportunity to catch up with friends of the podcast Mike Best , Kathryn Ventham and Michelle Simpson-Gallego at PodHaus studios in Digbeth. They talked about why the r
DEFRA recently launched a consultation on significant changes to it’s guidance on how Habitat Regulations Assessments should be carried out, which comes at an interesting time. It is, firstly, not long since DEFRA announ
Sam Stafford was in London recently and took the opportunity to catch up with old friends of the podcast Mike Kiely , Annie Gingell , Andrew Taylor and Iain Thomson , and new friend of the podcast Claire Tester . In a co
New Towns are back in the news because the Government has announced the first formal step in creating the next generation of them with the launch of a public consultation on the draft New Towns Programme and its environm
This is the third of a series of episodes being led by the oldest friend of the podcast, Paul Smith . Paul put it to Sam Stafford that debates about the planning system in England tend, for the most part, to focus solely
Sam Stafford was in Manchester last week and took the opportunity to catch up with friends of the podcast Lisa Tye , Andrew Johnston and Louise Fountain to discuss some of the issues of the day. In a conversation recorde
Strategic planning, as Sam Stafford said in the introduction to episode number 157, is back. That episode looked at what shape it is in right now. What have authorities been able to do whilst awaiting the consolidation o
Sam Stafford was in Birmingham recently and took the opportunity to record the first ‘catch up’-style episode with some of his friends working in the West Midlands. In a conversation recorded at PodHaus studios, Kathryn
In October 2025 Sam Stafford came across a blog by Jack Airey , who is now a Director at Public First but was the Head of Planning at Policy Exchange and subsequently spent a few years inside Number 10 as a Special Advis
Strategic planning is back. What do we know? We know that Policy PM1 of the revised draft NPPF anticipates the move towards national coverage of Spatial Development Strategies (SDSs), as promised by the end of the parlia
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50 Shades of Planning is hosted by Samuel Stafford. The show is categorised under government (news) and has published 175 episodes.
50 Shades of Planning has published 175 episodes.
50 Shades of Planning regularly covers government, news, politics. It sits in the government category, with a news focus.
50 Shades of Planning is accessible for guests with genuine government expertise. A personalised, episode-aware pitch will still outperform a generic one every time.
50 Shades of Planning hasn't explicitly signalled guest openness in recent episodes. That doesn't rule out pitching. your hook just needs to be especially compelling and relevant to their recent content.
Episodes of 50 Shades of Planning average 63 minutes, giving guests a long-form format with plenty of time to expand on their expertise.
Our data rates 50 Shades of Planning's guest bar at 80/100 (Premium tier). Established thought leaders with verified media credentials. Sign in to PitchCentric to see how your own Pod Score compares against this show.
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