Speakers

Samantha is a chartered Town Planner with over 30 years’ experience in planning. She joined the Civil Service in 2016 and is currently Head of Forward Planning in the DfE Planning team.

Samantha works closely with MHCLG and other government departments to facilitate school delivery and promote the place-making value of school sites by securing relevant input to national planning policy and guidance. The team she leads also influence the allocation of sites and promotion of planning policies in regional and local plans to aid delivery across all education settings, maximise developer contributions to school places and facilitate engagement and strategic partnerships to assist delivery (e.g. with MHCLG, Homes England, Local Authority Planning and Education departments). Her team produced the DfE guidance ‘Securing Developer Contributions to Education’ and ‘Estimating pupil yield from housing development’.

Her former Local Planning Authority roles include leading on infrastructure delivery planning and production of an RTPI award winning ‘Planning for Schools’ DPD. She has experience in supporting junior staff through the profession and a keen interest in learning and development.