Our Story:

Halton is a vibrant local authority with a rich history and heritage, featuring two iconic bridges that connect communities across the River Mersey. Located in Cheshire, Halton boasts excellent transport links between Liverpool and Manchester, as well as close proximity to both Liverpool John Lennon and Manchester Airports.

Our progressive community strategy aims to bring about meaningful, long-term improvements that enhance lives. It’s an exciting time to join us as we develop new policies and transform the way people access services.

We are immensely proud that when asked what’s great about working for Halton, the most popular response from our workforce has been ‘our colleagues’.

Our Team:

Halton’s Planning and Transport Policy team is looking for a Lead Planning Policy Officer. Halton’s Planning and Transport Policy team has a successful record of plan-making and driving high-quality place-making, which is supported by its elected members. Our team is enthusiastic and motivated with the primary role of taking forward the day to day work of maintaining and monitoring the current Delivery and Allocations Local Plan (DALP) and taking forward the review of Halton’s Delivery and Allocations Local Plan under the new planning regulations.

Your Contributions:

If you are a Principal planner who is confident in successfully leading projects through to delivery with good communication skills, the enthusiasm to support and guide junior members of the team and you are seeking a role that presents an opportunity to take the next step in your career to Lead Officer, this could be the perfect move for you.

We are looking for a motivated team player with extensive senior/principal planning policy experience who wants to and is ready to take the next step to become a Lead Officer of a small team of policy planners.

We require a RTPI recognised planning qualification or demonstrable experience in town planning and a working knowledge of planning legislation. The team covers a range of planning policy projects, which will include the review of the current DALP under the new planning regulations.

You will need to be confident in effectively managing your workload, and will have experience in preparing planning policy documents, plan-making practice and a good understanding of monitoring and reporting procedures.

You must have practical experience of Local Plan making, excellent report writing, research and analysis skills.

You will also have experience of speaking at examination or appeal hearings and advising on planning policy matters through the application process. Good IT skills and experience with Microsoft office products is expected.

The ability to build positive relationships and work collaboratively will be really important – you will be regularly working with a variety of internal and external customers and elected councillors.

Our Offer:

Aside from working with a great team, our employees have access to a fantastic range of benefits, including:

• A generous annual holiday allowance starting at 34 days per year (including bank holidays), increasing with long service with the option to purchase an additional four-days of unpaid leave for our Annual Christmas Closedown
• Membership of our defined benefit, salary-linked Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) with generous employer contributions
• 3 x Salary Life Cover via Local Government Pension Scheme
• Investment in your personal development
• Free Car Parking at HBC sites
• Flexible working arrangements
• Extensive employee benefits platform including discounted shopping, car leasing, gym memberships, wellbeing hub and Employee Assistance Programme.

Next Steps:

At Halton Borough Council, we want all of our candidates to feel well-informed so if you would like to have an informal chat about this role, please contact Andrew Plant head of planning, andrew.plant@halton.gov.uk , 0151 5117606

Interviews will take place on w/c 2 March 2026

At Halton Borough Council we want to ensure that our communities are represented across our workforce and a vital part of this is to encourage diversity in all respects. We are committed to making our recruitment practices barrier-free and tailored to best suit the needs and strength of the individual. This includes making adjustments for people with a disability, neurodiversity or with long-term health conditions. If you require accommodations, please reach out during the recruitment process so that we can make this the best possible experience for you – resourcing@halton.gov.uk

Please refer to the attached Job Profile for further information about the role and our values.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy earlier than the specified date should we receive sufficient applications. If you’re interested, please complete your application as early as possible.

We look forward to receiving your application!