Ben Castell (@bencastell.bsky.social)

Labour of Love - Design & Placemaking In anticipation of the revised NPPF, which was published on 30 July, Sam Stafford invited some of the Shades alumni to discuss some of the policy areas of most interest to them and how the new Government could and should approach them. Eight conversations were recorded, elements of which formed part of Episode 128 of the podcast, but Sam is publishing them all in full here on the YouTube channel. This is the second of the eight, which is a conversation between Hana Loftus, Andrew Taylor, Pooja Agrawal, Vicky Payne and Ben Castell about design and placemaking. Hana is a Director at HAT Projects, chair of Creative Colchester, and co-chair of the Design South East Design Review Panel and the Suffolk Design Review Panel. Andrew is Group Planning Director at Vistry Group. Pooja is CEO and Co-founder Public Practice. Vicky is an Associate at Jas Bhalla Works and an Independent Consultant (and as you will see Vicky’s camera was not playing ball on the day this was recorded). And Ben is a Director at AECOM. Their conversation takes the need for leadership, national standards and the office for place; design as quality, as place and as aesthetics; stewardship, beauty and what it is to be provenly popular. https://youtu.be/RWpf4_VDXL8?si=00Re5aicbXy-UcJ4