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How do they do it? Peter Wilkinson

Written by: Jez abbott
Published on: 8 Feb 2016
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Peter WilkinsonPeter Wilkinson has 36 years of professional planning experience. He has been East Midlands Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) chair three times and two years ago won the RTPI outstanding planner of the year award. For the last 16 years he has been at consultancy Landmark Planning and is now managing director of the practice in Leicestershire. The graduate of Liverpool University has been responsible for a wide range of urban strategies and development projects including the St Georges Area of Leicester masterplan for the regeneration of an inner industrial urban area. Wilkinson is currently a member of the Design Council's east Midlands design review panel.

Q. What are your objectives in your current role and how are you measured against them?

As well as day to day planning duties I have to satisfy clients' wider objectives, but I have to do this while maintaining professional integrity. Measurement at its most basic level is easily defined and simple: it's how often clients, public and private, come back to us.

What key lessons have you learned during your career that help you to fulfil those objectives?

A. Context is everything. Take in all the angles, from the nature of the site to the development industry per se.

The more you know the more you realise you don’t know. So never stop chalking up experience in the three main facets of planning: policy; development management and enforcement.

Listen first, talk second. Two ears and one mouth mean you should listen twice as much as you talk.