Providing a youth perspective on planning

Jess Parry is a planning volunteer with CPRE Lancashire, Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester. She tells us how volunteering has enabled her to gain real-world experience and why she believes it’s so important that young people are involved in rural and urban planning.

Contributing to real-world planning projects

Jess is currently studying for a four-year integrated master’s degree in planning at Liverpool University. She came across the opportunity to volunteer with CPRE Lancashire, Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester when searching for relevant work experience in the planning sector. ‘It’s really hard to get into real-world planning,’ she explains. ‘You get taught the basics at university, but there’s not that many opportunities to gain experience in real planning firms.’

‘I was searching and looking for things that I could do to volunteer and CPRE came up. We’d heard of CPRE reports within the university and studied a lot of them, so I thought it would be really beneficial for me.’ Jess has now been a planning volunteer for 10 months: ‘It’s been good to share and bring my perspective to real-world planning,’ she reflects.

Jess attends the planning sub-committee meetings for CPRE Lancashire, which occur every couple of months. ‘It’s really good to hear ideas from all over the region, what people have heard, what they’ve seen, and then debate them,’ she says.

‘One of the biggest projects I was helping with was the submission of a response to the Liverpool City Region Spatial Development Strategy. I contributed a lot of ideas, as it was an open response. I did anything I could to be the eyes and ears for that.’

New opportunities, events and connections

Jess feels that the real-world experience she’s gained through volunteering is invaluable. ‘They teach you the basics at university, but you’d never know the sort of debates that go on with real-world planners.’

‘I think for young people who are trying to get into this sector, it’s an experience that you wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else.’

Volunteering has also led to further beneficial experiences and opportunities for Jess. ‘Going to events has been a big learning curve for me,’ she says. Although she hasn’t landed on a specific planning specialism yet, a transport planning event in Liverpool inspired her: ‘It was inspiring to see all the different sectors come together,’ she explains. Jess is excited by the experience she’s gaining at CPRE, adding ‘by the time I leave university, I will have had 3 years’ experience of doing volunteering work with CPRE, so it’s well worth it.’

With Jess’s role aligning so well with her studies and career plans, she was recently invited by her university lecturer to share her experience with her peers. ‘I did a rural planning module, and the module leader asked me to do a presentation about what CPRE is and what we do,’ she explains. She’s also had the chance to make valuable connections within the wider planning sector: ‘Jackie Copley (Planning Director at CPRE Lancashire, Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester) has been amazing – she’s sent me so many different contacts, so when I leave university there are so many options.’

Jess has also found it easy to balance her volunteer role alongside her part-time work and studies: ‘If there’s one month when I haven’t got time to do anything, then I can easily send my apologies and catch up at the next meeting.’

The value & importance of youth voice in planning

Having grown up living close to the countryside on the outskirts of Stoke-on-Trent and regularly going camping and walking with her family, Jess found moving to Liverpool for university a big change. ‘For my first year, I lived in the city centre where there was little to no green space at all,’ she says. Despite the move, her love for nature has never wavered: ‘If I lost my connection with the countryside, that would be heartbreaking for me. It’s irreplaceable. You can’t change life experience; you can’t change those memories.’

Jess’s experience of living in a peri-urban area has given her a first-hand insight into some of the barriers that rural youth face. ‘Trying to get from one end of Stoke to the other is not a good time. For rural peri-urban areas, there’s a massive lack of public transport. Young people want to get out, they want to do things. But for someone who lives in a countryside area, you can’t get out.’ Jess recognises that this has exacerbated car use in rural communities: ‘I drive, but that’s because there was no option for me not to drive, or else I wouldn’t have been able to get to school, college, go places or see my family.’

Now that she’s entering the world of planning, Jess has come to realise that her experiences as a young person living in both a peri-urban area and a large city are an asset to her work. ‘I have views of those two different areas to draw upon,’ she says. Jess is also an advocate for young people’s involvement in planning: ‘We’re growing up in a generation where planning is obviously going to change with the new government, so to have young people’s input on how that’s going to happen is important.’

Find out more

If you think you’d like to volunteer for CPRE like Jess and stand with the countryside, take a look at our volunteering pages and current opportunities, or get in touch with us at volunteeringteam@cpre.org.uk. You can find out more about CPRE Lancashire, Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester here.