Planning Strategy Manager

Grade L £54,495

Contract Permanent

Essential Requirements, Current Valid UK Driving Licence, Relevant Degree or Equivalent Qualification

Interview date: To Be Confirmed

Unfortunately, we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Please read the detailed information at the bottom of this advert before you make an application as it may be rejected if we detect AI use.

If you have completed the GM Elevate (Leadership Development) Programme, please indicate this within the ‘About You’ or ‘Supporting Statement’ section of your application

The Role:

Salary £54,495 to £59,005 pay award pending

Bolton's Local Plan is heading to submission, examination and adoption. You will lead it there. By the end of 2027, you will have taken the Plan through examination to adoption and shaped the spatial strategy that follows it.

Are you look for a meaningful lead role on an innovative Local Plan in Greater Manchester?

Bolton is a place with ambition and a clear sense of itself: a town that has kept its identity inside Greater Manchester, with significant regeneration in train and genuine opportunity in the places it has identified for growth.

This post will suit an experienced planning manager. It will equally suit a high-performing Principal Planner who has led strategic plan-making workstreams and mentored or managed junior staff and is ready for their first step into formal management.

You will lead the Planning Strategy team, give evidence at examination, and work directly with members, developers, statutory consultees and sub-regional partners. You will oversee the Council's Land Charges service, and lead Bolton's contribution to Places for Everyone and the wider Greater Manchester spatial planning agenda.

The wider team is strong and high performing. You’ll be supported by a Planning Strategy Advisor who has led the Plan to this point and will support your integration into managing the team. Additionally, the Principal Planners who will be leading the plan alongside you are capable and supportive.

About You:

You are a planner with real depth in plan-making: grasp of national policy and ideally with experience in a Green Belt authority or an authority with complex development challenges.

You are ready to get stuck in and lead an ambitious and motivated team. You have led planning policy workstreams, and you are ready to lead, or continue leading, people. You are direct, calm under scrutiny, and credible in a public forum.

Experience of Local Plan examination is ideal but not essential: we will support the right candidate to prepare for it. You are interested in Bolton: the place, the people, and you want to make a real difference in the Borough.

About Us:

This is your opportunity to join us at an exciting time as we have strong ambitions for the borough.

Bolton is a great place to work. We are a welcoming organisation that wants to contribute to a place where people feel active, connected and prosperous. We are passionate about improving the outcomes and experience of Bolton people. We want Bolton to be a vibrant place built on strong cohesive communities, successful businesses and healthy, engaged residents.

As an employer we want to thank our employees for their hard work and commitment, by giving them the opportunity to access a range of exclusive rewards and benefits, including discounts and exclusive gym membership prices and salary sacrifice schemes. In addition, we offer a generous annual leave allowance, flexible work opportunities, access to a Pension Scheme, as well as a range of employee wellbeing and support services.

Our Values are really important to us, read all about them below, along with all our great staff benefits, the job description/person specification for the role and the important legal bits, and our Top Tips too.

Ready to apply? Then please click Apply and answer the questions.

Within Greater Manchester, local authorities have made a commitment to improve the employment opportunities for people with disabilities, care leavers, carers, and ex-military personnel. Please see greater.jobs for further information before you apply.

This post is a designated customer facing role under the fluency duty and requires a specified level of spoken English as per the person specification.

This organisation has signed up to the Greater Manchester Continuous Service Commitment. That means we will recognise your continuous or ‘unbroken’ service in any Greater Manchester local authority or NHS organisation that has signed the commitment, Transport for Greater Manchester, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service or Greater Manchester Combined Authority, giving you access to our service-related benefits. Please see the home page of greater.jobs for more information.

For more information about working for Bolton Council, please see greater.jobs; for advice and support with your application, contact recruitment@bolton.gov.uk