It may be some time since I did detailed design highway or bridge design work, or since I worked on site supervising construction works, but the breadth of experience that I’ve accumulated over the years working as a Chartered Engineer is something that enables me to do what I do now. And so it was with perhaps a little trepidation that I walked over to the Oxford Union this morning to speak at the annual Joint Planning Law Conference, although the conference welcomed the diversity brought by having an engineer speak to them!

Stepping up onto the stage I recalled that one of the defining moments of my career had been when I had – following my natural curiosity – reached out to the strategic planners working on (what turned out to be) the last Devon Structure Plan. It was the mid-90s and the transport planning profession was welcoming the publication of PPG13 (Planning Policy Guidance 13) – quite a landmark piece of guidance, setting out the need to adopt principles of sustainable development.

To cut a long story short, working with strategic (land-use) planners add a new perspective to my experience, one that I’ve drawn on many times in my career. Indeed in many ways it’s been something I draw on a lot in my role with England’s Economic Heartland, and before that with the South East England Regional Assembly. And so it was a pleasure to share with them the journey that EEH has been on over the last 5 years.

One issue that we are yet to crack fully is the need to improve our ability to turn strategy into delivery of investment, confidently and at pace. And this is why for me working closely with strategic planners and the legal profession remains so important. There are opportunities to make smarter use of mechanisms that already exist to achieve this goal: working in collaboration with colleagues from other professions offers the best hope of exploiting those opportunities.