Jodrell Bank Cheshire

Planning jobs at Cheshire East

Plan your career with us and be part of our plan for the future

Whether you’re a new graduate, or a senior planning professional, we can promise you a rewarding career in one of the most forward-thinking councils in the country. And with a wide range of opportunities currently available, this is a great time to join our team.

We’re one of the UK’s busiest planning authorities and you’ll have opportunities to be involved in important plans and significant developments, some of which are already in progress, and others that will evolve over the coming years.

Plan your career

With a new local plan being developed, a uniquely supportive environment, and a team approach that will help you to overcome the most complex planning challenges, together, we can make a difference for generations to come.

Apply for a planning job at Cheshire East Council

We are delighted that you share our ambition and are interested in joining our supportive planning team at Cheshire East Council. You can fill in an application form by visiting Planning jobs at Cheshire East Council.

If you are still not sure whether we are right for you or have questions, use the contact form to request a call back. Thank you again, for your interest in our planning jobs and vacancies at Cheshire East Council.

Planning for the future

Houses in a housing estate

Securing exceptional design quality is a core mission within the planning service and our current Local Plan puts us in a great position to achieve this. As we look towards developing a new local plan and managing future development, environmental sustainability and the needs of our communities will continue to be central to what we do.

Planned mixed use developments

Fields and a motorway

Our Handforth and South Cheshire Garden Villages will deliver more than 2,000 new homes with complementary facilities and infrastructure, creating new, sustainable places and communities for the future.

Join our Team

Whether you’re looking for a role in planning, building inspection, landscape, design or ecology, or any of our supporting admin roles, we would love to hear from you.

You can take a look at our listed planning job vacancies and we welcome you to complete an application form, (which can be accompanied by a CV), as soon as you are able to.

We will be seeking to interview prospective candidates as soon as possible. You can use the below form, which will take five minutes to fill in, to ask us any questions you may have.

Request a callback to discuss planning roles

To find out how we use your information see our privacy notice (opens in a new window).

Planning teams and roles

Our supportive and friendly planning service has a team of more than 100 full and part-time staff. We operate across the whole planning spectrum, from home extensions to multi-million pound infrastructure projects, making best use of our depth of experience and expertise across a range of disciplines. 

While the service deals with all aspects of new and existing development, we also make sure buildings are safe and we plan for the future needs of the borough through developing our Local Plan.

We have a range of planning teams in the service.

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This is a vital team within the service, carefully managing development and planning applications to improve our built environment.

The work here involves negotiating to secure the delivery of sustainable development through pre-application advice and guidance and managing the life cycle of planning applications from inception through to discharge of conditions, and any associated appeal work

Our experienced planning enforcement team investigates complaints and suspected breaches of planning control which might include development taking place without the benefit of planning permission and breaches of planning conditions. Our enforcement professionals carry out appeal work and liaise closely with our legal colleagues when enforcement action is needed.

This creative and supportive team of experts includes urban designers, conservation officers, landscape architects, arboricultural officers, and ecologists. They provide consultation responses on planning applications alongside more specialist advice to the wider council and public.

Such work includes tree protection orders and associated applications, policy support, reviewing and designating conservation areas and improving the environmental performance of development by (for example) securing biodiversity net gain and sustainable urban drainage 

This important team looks after the management and monitoring of legal agreements and Community Infrastructure Levy to ensure that appropriate mitigation and infrastructure monies are delivered from applications.

As a crucial team, planning support provides administrative and technical support for the whole Service. This includes planning application validation and registration, land charges, street naming and numbering. The team also provide a direct response for dealing with customer enquiries and customer engagement whilst managing ICT systems.

Our colleagues in this fantastic team look to the future and ensure the council has robust and up to date planning policies to guide and manage new development and infrastructure across the Borough.

This includes preparing statutory plans such as the Cheshire East Local Plan, supplementary planning documents and other guidance. Work closely with local communities to enable delivery of Neighbourhood Plans and liaison with other councils and the wider sub-region to enable economic, social and environmental interactions.

This dedicated team provides professional assessment of Building Regulation applications and notices, all aspects of advice and support, as well as enforcement.

They provide immediate response to reports of dangerous structures

What you can expect from us as an employer

A local authority is a great place to start, develop and complete your career and we have a great diversity of planning work for you to get involved with.

We expect you to commit yourself to the role fully and with great enthusiasm, but we believe that any working relationship works both ways too, so we encourage flexible hybrid working and employ many staff who have different commitments around their job.

We are here to support you in your career and to ensure that you have everything you need on your journey. We encourage professional accreditation and membership. Therefore, the cost to join the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) or one other professional body will be covered by the council with a small contribution of £50 from the employee.

Starting a career with Cheshire East also means that you can enrol on the Local Government Pension Scheme, which as an employer we contribute generously to, and access our brilliant new employee benefits platform - ‘Vivup’.

Come and join us…

Professional support

We provide training through courses, seminars and workshops as well as our own in-house programme of learning on key subject areas. We also offer mentoring, coaching and support with a focus on people starting their career in planning.

Car parking and allowances

You will be allocated a parking pass which will enable you to park free of charge on specified local authority owned car parks, for work purposes.

Page last reviewed: 03 December 2024