Why Lancaster?
We’re an award-winning, kind and responsible council, and we’re incredibly proud of our district and communities that reach from the coast to the mountains, including the historic City of Lancaster, Morecambe, Carnforth and many other beautiful places.
The district’s combination of an outstanding environment and economic potential offer the most interesting planning opportunities to become involved in shaping.
The Role
The Council has decided to review its Local Plan. We need a planning assistant in the policy team to help with this challenging task. You will support experienced and talented colleagues in a multi-disciplinary team on work that covers the whole range of planning policy areas including investigating the suitability of sites for housing, retailing, employment, and open spaces as development allocations in the local plan. The Council has been exploring innovative approaches to help address the challenge of climate change and will look to continue this work in the Local Plan Review.
The appointee will be involved in all aspects of the team’s work including supporting public consultation.
This is a hybrid working role and regular attendance is required in our offices in Lancaster and Morecambe. The post is permanent and full-time, 37 hours per week, working Monday to Friday. You may be required on occasion to work outside normal office hours in accordance with the needs of the service.
For further details, please refer to the job description.
For further information or an informal discussion please contact Paul Hatch, Principal Planning Policy Officer, on 01524 582329.
About You
You will be a planning graduate with some experience of working in a planning environment in either the public or private sector. Alternatively, you may be a geography or environmental sciences graduate also with some experience of working in a planning environment, with sound knowledge of planning concepts and have decided to pursue a career in planning.
A full current UK driving licence is essential, as the post holder will be required to undertake site visits across the District. As a result you will be required to sign up to the authorised external DVLA driving licence validation organisation that we use to manage and monitor our employees driving licence data.
Our Benefits
Lancaster City Council is a great place to work, as well as being part of something special you will also benefit from:
Generous annual leave allowance
Local Government Pension Scheme
A range of employee benefits including discounted gym membership, cycle to work scheme, the opportunity to purchase extra time off, as well as discounts on days out, activities and retail.
Lancaster City Council has unanimously declared a climate emergency and will therefore work towards reducing carbon emissions to net-zero by 2030. As part of this role, you will be expected to participate and work towards reducing both carbon emissions and the impacts of climate change.
We are an Investor in People, Forces Friendly employer, and an Armed Forces Covenant committed organisation. We welcome applications from defence reserves and other members of our armed forces community. We are an inclusive employer and welcome applications from all parts of our community.
At Lancaster City Council we aim to have a diverse workforce that is representative of the district that we serve and provide a working environment where each employee feels able to bring their whole self to work. We welcome applications from all sections of our community and provide several supportive and inclusive workplace networks and safe spaces for employees to feel connected. Our workplace wellbeing strategy drives our commitment to staff wellbeing initiatives and ensuring that our organisation is a great place to work for all.
We are a disability confident committed employer.
Interview Date: Tuesday 11th June
Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme
Disability Confident
About Disability Confident
A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to
Disability Confident.
