More than 100 planners and built environment professionals from across Scotland attended the annual Heads of Planning Scotland (HOPS) conference, held at the University of the West of Scotland's Ayr campus on 4 June.
The full day event featured sessions on Leadership in Planning with speakers from Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland; housing delivery, with contributors from experts across the public and private sector, including The Land Development Agency in Ireland; and two workshops on a variety of current planning topics.
Hanna McCulloch and Felicia Szloboda from the Improvement Service’s Child Poverty team delivered a workshop exploring the role of planning in long-term solutions for child poverty.
Alex Rathmell, Capacity Building Manager with the Scottish Climate Intelligence Service, which is delivered by the IS in partnership with the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, led a workshop on net zero and delivery on climate change.
The day ended with a panel on the conference’s theme, “The Future of Planning,” and featured both long-time practitioners and emerging professionals, including Susan Rintoul, Improvement Lead with the National Planning Improvement team at the IS.
HOPS, the representative organisation for senior planning officers from Scotland’s 32 local authorities and 2 national park authorities, is supported through the Improvement Service by the HOPS Secretariat.
Their annual conference is held at the start of summer and hosted by the chair and their local planning authority. Next year’s conference will be hosted by Paul Macari, the incoming chair of HOPS, and Chief Planning Officer at Aberdeenshire Council.