Twenty years ago, my business partner, Charles St George and I had a bright idea and set up a company that would, in its own small way, transform the way the development industry goes about getting planning permission.
Whilst the debate around waste and resource management has moved on during this time, it hasn't changed the public reaction to waste facilities.
Stephen Byfield, managing director, PPS Group
PPS was that business and our bright idea was to help companies secure planning permission by focussing on local politicians, communities and the media.
It is rare nowadays to find a professional team without someone advising on these things. But back in 1990, PPS was alone. And while the tremendous growth in the discipline (there are now 30 plus firms offering these services) is partly down to our idea being a damned good one, it also has much to do with the fact that the planning system keeps changing in our favour.
In 1990, Nick Ridley, the former Secretary of State for the Environment, had only just introduced the word “Nimby” to the English language and project teams rarely felt the need to do more than negotiate with local authority officers.
Since then, every tweak of government policy has increased the say local people have in applications. The public, who were then only beginning to flex their muscles, cannot now be ignored on any significant planning application.
Community involvement and consultation is now expected on every scheme (and with IPC schemes it is now a material consideration). And more is on the way whichever party wins power at the General Election.
These changes have been so significant that just last month the managing director of one of the country's largest planning consultancies told me that they see our field as being the only one that will experience significant growth in property consultancy over the next five years.
Nowhere have these changes been more apparent than in the waste and resource management sector. As national and European policy has driven the need for new infrastructure to divert waste from landfill, waste projects have become a staple of our diet. The role of communications in waste management has changed wholesale from PPS' first waste project sixteen years ago.
Consultation on a waste project was unheard of then and PPS' first instruction in this sector was with a FTSE 100 company, where the first hurdle was convincing the Board that we should even be talking to the local community.
It is now arguably among the most sophisticated sector at consultation (in part due to the public funds involved in many projects which means developers must involve local communities) and communications advisors are involved at the outset as part of the core team.
Over the last two decades, PPS has worked on some of the biggest and highest profile waste projects across the UK and for the majority of the major waste management companies including WRG, Biffa, Cory, SITA, Shanks and United Utilities and a number of waste disposal authorities.
Whilst the debate around waste and resource management has moved on during this time, it hasn't changed the public reaction to waste facilities. Information is ever more accessible via the internet and developers now have to contend with a raft of (often unsubstantiated) evidence from opposition groups, which has made effective and open communication with local communities harder but even more essential.
Being 20 is a good age for a business. We know what we are about. We have got over those gawky, uncomfortable years, learnt how to cope with growth and yet are still fresh faced enough to view the future with excitement. And PPS is still the biggest (and, I like to think, the best) firm in the field we began.
Subscribe for free