Senior Planning Consultant

Location:
Birmingham in line with our Agile Working Policy. You will need to be able to work from our Birmingham office as often as business needs require, and be open to flexible working hours.

Salary:
Competitive

Terra Quest Solutions Ltd is an award-winning and market-leading specialist provider of planning, land, property, and business solutions. We are an established and trusted organisation that is renowned for its expertise in providing innovative and cost-effective solutions to both public and private sectors. Our team delivers bespoke, flexible, and efficient services through a process-orientated delivery structure. We pride ourselves on strong customer relationships evidenced by the high proportion of referrals and repeat business.

We are a Living Wage Foundation accredited employer, committed to supporting the well-being and development of all our people. With competitive salaries, enhanced Family Friendly policies; a fabulous suite of benefits (including:
Pension;
Life Assurance;
Employee Assistance Programme; option to buy additional annual leave in addition to 25 days plus Bank Holidays); true flexibility with our Agile Working approach, and superb training and development opportunities, we really care about our team!

Due to a period of sustained growth, we are looking to recruit a Planning Consultant to join our expanding Professional Services Team delivering a unique set of specialist planning services to planning professionals, developers, local planning authorities, applicants and the public.

Reporting to the Principal Planning Consultant and working within the Planning Services Team, the Senior Planning Consultant will be primarily responsible for providing expert advice, guidance and making informed assessments and recommendations to a range of customers, including users of Terra Quest's national Planning Portal.

As part of our Agile Working Policy, we are seeking individuals who are open to working outside of traditional office hours when required, to extend our service offerings to customers, including weekday mornings, evenings and  return, we offer flexibility to help you balance your commitments inside and outside of work.

• Providing on-line/remote planning advice and guidance on general and specific planning matters.
• Providing support for the wider Planning Services team, answering queries in support of the Planning Guidance Service and Local Authority work.
• Where required, to prepare for customer meetings by accessing local planning policy and history documents from the Local Planning Authority website, in context of the written request received.
• Where required providing a brief written summary of the meeting and, once quality assured, submit to the applicant.
• Where required for Planning Guidance Service or Site Search services, providing a detailed written Planning Consultancy report to include reference to planning policy, planning history, planning constraints, general advice and recommendations.
• Where appropriate, to recommend and facilitate referral of customers to additional services to assist with their enquiries.
• Completing delegated and committee planning application reports in accordance with the company's agreed Key Performance Indicators, including Household Residential Extensions, Lawful Development Certificates, Prior Notifications, Advertisement Consents and Changes of Use
• Where required, preparing documents and forms in support of customer's planning application submissions. This may include undertaking site visits to survey sites and preparing plans where required.
• Where appropriate, to recommend and facilitate referral of customers to additional services to assist with their enquiries.
• Effectively communicating and negotiating with applicants and agents with regards to planning applications, planning queries and post-refusal decision advice.
• Using back-office systems to update applications, compile reports and record details of site visits and the evaluation process
• Updating customer enquiry database in accordance with key performance indicators
• Attending and…