whatever happened to the chief planners?

Wray argues that the planning profession will not recover its status until planners are back with a seat at the top table in local government. These days in England you would be lucky to find a planning department with a planner in charge. There will more likely be a head of planning at third or fourth tier, with a small team focused on regulatory functions. The Local Plan may be prepared elsewhere in the organization. There will be few if any cognate disciplines in the planning team. There would of course be huge opposition from fairly obvious quarters. But advancing the art and science of town and country planning may require a certain amount of disruption. Protecting vested interests in local government is not part of the planner's professional responsibility. And something has just got to be done.