Senior Transport Planner
Salary: £46,041 – £49,083 per annum                 
Grade: PO4
Hours per Week: 36
Nature of Employment: Permanent
DBS Required: None
Location: Hounslow House, 7 Bath Road, Hounslow, Middlesex, TW3 3EB.
Job Reference: R0006493

About Us at Hounslow

We’d love you to join us at the London Borough of Hounslow! Our people are deeply committed to providing excellent services to our residents, doing all we can to make lives as good as they can be.

We are an outstanding council, serving an outstanding borough. With brilliant, visionary leadership, a dynamic Cabinet and a can-do culture, we’ve built strong partnerships which have transformed how we serve one of London’s most diverse boroughs. Hounslow is the world in one place and full of potential.  We are stepping up for our residents like never before.

About our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

We live by five core values: Lead with Heart, Do New, Pass on the Power, Harness the Mix and Be a Rock.  All our work has equality, diversity and inclusion at its very heart, best articulated in “Harness the Mix”.  It's about breaking down barriers between our parts and people and unlocking the problem-solving power of our amazing mix of minds. We serve a diverse community, we have a diverse workforce and we are committed to being an inclusive employer.

We work hard to create representation across our workforce and leadership community, we have thriving employee network groups and our learning and development programmes help us lead, model and breathe ways of working that eliminate inequality, inequity, injustice and bias.

As part of this and under our commitments as a Disability Confident Employer, we make reasonable adjustments to accommodate our candidates.  There’s space for you to tell us what you need within our application form.

Our Benefits

If you join us, you’ll have access to a range of employee benefits.  Read more about these here.

About the Role

Exciting things are happening here in Hounslow!  Our diverse team is finding all sorts of ways to make our borough an even better place to be for our residents and visitors alike. By dealing with a wide range of transport planning issues from major strategic transport projects to road safety education, our Transport Planning & Road Safety team is central to our success.

We are committed to delivering our objectives to make Hounslow a cleaner, greener, safer, healthier, thriving and liveable place for our residents. Ensuring people have high quality options to travel is an essential part of this aim. Whether that is encouraging more people to walk, wheel and cycle more, or working with partners to improve our public transport network you will be at the heart of our aim to improve health, respond to the climate emergency and reduce congestion.

We’re looking for a Senior Transport Planner to help us ensure that new developments are designed and built in accordance with our innovative transport strategy, and that developers share our vision to make the borough healthy, clean, green, safe and accessible for our residents and visitors.  You will help us to assess the transport impacts of major new developments, ensuring that all proposals support our transport strategy and our values. This will include representing the council at planning appeals, including Public Inquiries, and advising Members at Planning Committee.

You will provide expert transport advice on applications for planning permission, working closely with our Planning, Housing, Environment and Regeneration teams to promote active and sustainable travel in all new developments. We are consulted on a wide range of developments ranging from large mixed-use developments in the Great West Corridor Opportunity Area which require significant transport improvements, to regeneration of our housing stock, to small applications from householders. You will have the opportunity to become involved in a full range of proposals as we respond to the climate emergency and look to deliver a sustainable future.

You will assist in the development, review and appraisal of Council Transport policy, particularly that within the Local Plan, planning briefs, supplementary planning guidance.

About the Team You’ll Be Working In

You will be working in our Transport Planning & Road Safety team, reporting to the Principal Transport Planner, and will be part of a team that breaks down departmental barriers, helping to ensure the continual delivery of our transport policy and programmes and to achieve the Council’s corporate and transport objectives.

The team work flexibly and working remotely is possible but you will need to be available to come into the office in order to undertake site visits and attend meetings as required.

About You

If the points below resonate with you, we’d love you to apply:

Knowledge and Experience

• Educated to degree level in Transport Planning, Town Planning, Civil Engineering or equivalent.
• Knowledge and understanding of current best practice in the promotion of sustainable transport and experience of leading on the promotion of sustainable transport.
• Knowledge and understanding of the Planning system, including national and regional Government Planning Guidance and UK and London transport strategy.
• Experience in identifying, reviewing and responding to the transport impacts of new development including reviewing Transport Assessments and successfully negotiating with developers to secure appropriate mitigation measures.
• Experience of working closely with colleagues across different disciplines to secure positive outcomes.
• Experience in developing and presenting reports and briefings for senior decision makers at Planning and other committees, or other meetings with minimal managerial oversight.
• Experience in negotiating planning legal agreements and an understanding of highways legal agreements, working closely with developers and colleagues across the council.
• Experience in responding to other transport, stopping-up, rights of way, and planning queries.

Skills and Abilities

• Excellent written communication skills with an ability to summarise complex proposals into non-technical language and draft clear, concise and accurate reports and deliver these reports at formal meetings of the council.
• Excellent oral communication skills and ability to present information and projects for consideration clearly, concisely and persuasively to a wide range of audiences.
• Experience in successfully negotiating with stakeholders and developers.
• Experience of managing and motivating staff.
• Personal Style and Behaviours
• An open and approachable manner that allows the postholder to engage positively with colleagues, stakeholders and partners, including voluntary & community groups to drive the delivery of projects successfully.
• A calm and clear approach to dealing with contentious and emotive issues and conflict; the ability to persuade others of the merits of a particular proposal.

Read more about the work you’ll be doing in the Job Description.

Don’t meet every single requirement? We know that sometimes people can be put off applying for a job if they think they can’t tick every box.  So, if you can do most of what we’re looking for, go ahead and apply. You may be just the right candidate for the job!

The key information you need about the role should be in the job description, but if you have any further questions about the role, please contact:

Email: [email protected]

Telephone: 0208 583 4878

Interviews for this role will be held during week commencing 10^th June 2024.  The interview format will be a 10 minute presentation followed by questions. Further details will be shared with successful candidates who are invited to interview.

Closing Date: 3^rd June 2024

For further information and to apply, click here or the apply button.