Planning Officer​/Senior Planning Officer - Minerals & Waste

Protect it. Shape it. Enjoy it. Come to Dorset and be a part of it

Dorset is a beautiful and iconic area, with historic market towns, wonderful countryside and miles of stunning coast as well as a place of innovation and growth.

We are a bold and ambitious council, taking Dorset into the future - and our Planning team is taking centre stage.

It’s a great council to work for, and you will be joining a friendly, supportive team.

Employee benefits include a local government pension, generous annual leave allowance and flexible working.

We’re looking for a Planning Officer or Senior Planning Officer to join our minerals and waste team, to help us prepare a new Minerals and Waste Plan. It’s a career‑graded post, with starting salary depending on your qualifications and experience, and the chance to progress through the grades.

Whether you have a background in minerals and waste or are an experienced planner looking for a change of direction, Dorset is an exciting place to be working in minerals and waste, with a wide and varied range of minerals, waste management technologies and environmental constraints.

Our main office base is in Dorchester but we are all set up for hybrid working and you can work remotely or in the office, as long as you can be available for necessary meetings and site visits.

You would be taking a lead role in a small team preparing the new Minerals and Waste Plan, following the new process about to be introduced. Dorset has a wide variety of minerals, and we also need to look for sites for new waste infrastructure. It’s a chance to be involved in the whole process of preparing a plan, including research, consultation and public examination.

You’ll be working within a team of specialist planning officers, and liaising with a wide range of other planning, environmental, economic development and waste team colleagues. We’re a large unitary authority and there may also be opportunities to work in other parts of the Planning service. We will also be working with adjoining councils in the Wessex Region in the preparation of a Spatial Development Strategy which will include higher level minerals and waste policy.

The role is career graded depending on your level of experience and qualification. We would like to appoint a qualified planner with relevant experience, at the higher end of the career grade, but we’d also be happy to hear from you if you have a degree level qualification in a relevant subject and some experience relevant to planning and/or minerals and waste - or if you are a newly qualified planner looking for your first role.

• manage a significant workload and meet challenging deadlines
• demonstrate strong written and oral communication skills
• present confidently to committees, inquiries and public forums
• understand democratic processes and public consultation
• work effectively within a team and advise others where required
• be adaptable and able to balance competing demands
• share our values of Respect, Together, Accountability, Openness and Curiosity

If you are motivated by complex planning challenges, public interest decision-making and shaping long-term policy in a unique county, this is an opportunity to develop your career within a specialist and supportive team.