Getting into a planning Pickle

Charlotte Chan

09 November 2012

It's not often that you find yourself dressed up as a middle-aged man shouting for attention, especially when you're a twenty-something year old woman, but it's all in a day's work.

Not long ago news broke out that the Government will be releasing a new Planning Bill, looking for planning to solve our economic crisis.

In amongst all the jargon we realised that the Bill would override local democracy, bypass local councils and hand planning decision-making back to the Secretary of State Eric Pickles.

Having heard the news, it was up to me to come up with a stunt that would explain this in a snapshot. The pressure was on and it was time to put my thinking cap on.

Ideas ranged from Pickles pulling a plug on democracy to vampire Pickles sucking away local power. We eventually decided on dressing up Pickles as a robber stealing bags of planning power from local councils.

Using anything I could find in the office I made Pickles masks, robber shirts, swag bags, leaflets and even a banner, all within 2 days - phew.

It's amazing what a few black tops, white tape and pieces of card can do to bring alive an action.

Rolling out the stunt at the Tory Party Conference it was a scary sight to behold, with so many large Pickle faces looking out to the crowd calling out to "Stop Pickles from stealing local planning power".

Even though it was a bit of a challenge it was also a really exciting experience, giving me the opportunity to be creative with planning, which, let's be honest, isn't the most exciting of subjects.

Thanks to all the fantastic volunteers who helped out.

The Bill is going through Parliament - we'll be watching closely to check he puts people and climate change at its heart.

Charlotte Chan
Fair and Planned Transition Team

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