About Us
Bexley is an outer London Borough with the best of both worlds, located between the hustle and bustle of London and the Garden of England, Kent. Within the borough we have award winning parks, open spaces and listed heritage sites.
The London Borough of Bexley is at the heart of regeneration and change as London moves east. Bexley is planning for unprecedented growth and development, but a key corporate and political priority is to ensure managed and controlled growth and the planning enforcement team plays a crucial role delivering on that priority. You will be part of the planning enforcement team ensuring that development is built in the right location and in seeking to resolve a wide range of planning issues that affect our residents, businesses and visitors within our Borough.
About the Role
For the Senior Planning Enforcement post, this is a 12 months fixed contract to provide maternity cover. You will be responsible for continuing the case work of the Senior Planning Enforcement Officer and responding to new enquiries into the Council. You will be expected to be able to arrive with the experience to deal with casework from complaint to conclusion, that includes complex and contentious casework.
You will have gained experience in informal and formal enforcement matters, including preparing and issuing Notices, prosecutions and appeals. You will be ambitious for new opportunities and want to work as part of dynamic and friendly team to meet the Borough’s ambitions. You will be capable of managing a caseload of planning enforcement cases with good people, organisational and writing skills and a keenness to learn and expand your experience and be able to make an immediate contribution to the team.
This is a key role for the delivery of the Council’s strategic corporate priorities. Working for us you will have the opportunity to make a real difference for our residents. If you’re looking for an exciting challenge in a flexible, modern and accommodating working culture, come and join us on our journey.
Please refer to the Job Description for more information.
This role is maternity cover for up to 12 months.
We will offer you in return a package that includes a competitive salary, an excellent pension scheme and generous annual leave plus bank holidays. For more information on the benefits package on offer please refer to the Candidate Information document.
Candidate Profile
It is desirable for the candidate to have a First degree or equivalent that would allow entry onto RTPI accredited postgraduate degree, a good understanding of current issues and developments affecting planning, regeneration and local government in London; An understanding of main central government and development plan policy issues including development management legislation. From a planning enforcement perspective, you will need a good understanding of the operation of local government, experience of providing a support function to a Planning Service and to provide an effective and responsive planning enforcement services on a mixed caseload of breaches, including large, complex and specialised types and issues and drafting serving enforcement notices and giving evidence in court. Appeal experience for written representation and hearings procedure is desirable.
You will have gained a good level of experience in investigations, working effectively in a team and independently as well as being able to manage your time and to be able to proritise casework. You will need to demonstrate competence in customer care and have the ability to work effectively under pressure and handle stress. You will be a logical thinker with attention to detail and ability to analyse and weigh complex issues and achieve a quality / quantity balance. You will also have gained a good proficiency in general IT skills, including database management and Electronic Data Management (EDM).
The successful candidate will be able to display a good level of ability in letter writing; in writing clear reports on a wide range of planning issues, exhibit a clear and comprehensible writing style in line with Plain English principles.
Your verbal communication skills will be effective in difficult situations and to be able to demonstrate a good level of proficiency in negotiation with clear listening, questioning and reasoning ability. The role will develop your abilities in assertiveness in seeking to resolve cases and you will need to demonstrate effective presentation skills. This will include the ability to speak with confidence and accuracy, using accurate sentence structures and vocabulary; Ability to choose the right kind of vocabulary for the situation in hand without a great deal of hesitation; Ability to listen to customers and understand their needs and the ability to tailor your approach to each conversation appropriate to the customer, responding clearly even in complex situations.
The role also will requires assisting the Planning Enforcement Manager and to positively support the enforcement team as a whole in the delivery of this service.
For the full list of essential and desirable criteria for this role then please refer to the Person Specification within the Job Description.
If any mandatory fields are missing, a pop-up box will appear at the top of the page advising which sections require completion. Please check your Junk email for any correspondence.
Additional Information
As a disability confident employer Bexley welcomes applications from people with all disabilities, including hidden disabilities and mental health conditions. We will interview any disabled applicant who meets the minimum criteria. If you require reasonable adjustments to be made to any part of the recruitment process due to your disability, please contact us on recruitment@bexley.gov.uk.
Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme
Disability Confident
About Disability Confident
A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to
Disability Confident.
