Council awarded top prize at Royal Town Planning Institute Awards Ceremony

Each year the RTPI Awards celebrate planning excellence on a national scale to acknowledge the positive contribution that planning professionals make to the communities they serve. 

The RTPI named Hinckley & Bosworth the winner of the accolade out of 39 planning authorities in the East Midlands.

Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council Chief Executive Bill Cullen said: “I am extremely pleased that we have been recognised as a council that delivers a first-class planning service in the region.  

“The Planning Service went through a large overhaul in 2021 and early 2022, with significant members of the Development Management, Policy and Planning Enforcement teams leaving the authority between summer 2021 and spring 2022. 
  
“The service went through significant challenges, with these exacerbated by an increase in the number of planning applications submitted, the impact of Covid-19 and the necessary move to hybrid working, and a large turnover of staff.  
  
“However, since late 2022 under the leadership of our Director of Communities & Development Services a new team has formed and thrived. The Director has led the implementation of a service wide action plan and in 2023 was the fourth most improved council nationally in 2023 in terms of performance in processing applications. 
  
“To be recognised and acknowledged by your peers is a great achievement and I congratulate everyone involved within the planning service, the support given by the leadership of the council and for the work that has been undertaken over the past few years. We have always been transparent about the difficulties we were confronted with, but this award acknowledges the huge strides the team have made and responds positively to unwarranted recent criticism levelled at the council’s Planning Service.”  

All the East Midlands Awards local winning entries will be put forward for the RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence national awards. The national finalists will be announced in mid-October. And the winners will be honoured at a celebration ceremony taking place in London on 26 November.
 
Photo left to right: Representatives of Hinckley & Bosworth’s Planning Services team:  Daisy Shields, Planning Policy Officer, Tim Hartley, Development Management Team Leader, Sullevan Archer, Planning Officer, Christopher Brown, Head of Planning, Satbir Jandu, Planning Officer and Kay Carpenter, Managing Director of STAT Planning, one of the sponsors of the awards.