Job Description

About Bury Planning

Bury's Development Management service is recognised as one of the top performing planning services in the country. It has recently been used by the Planning Advisory Service as case study for how to process planning applications efficiently and has been described as 'offering a strong and professional service to the citizens of Bury', in an independent peer review. It has also been recognised Nationally in the Planning Awards as Team of the Year and nominated for Team of the Year with the RTPI.


The authority has a growth agenda for development and is seeking inward investment with many exciting schemes and masterplans for new development. This is clearly demonstrated in the recently adopted Places for Everyone, which has allocated some of the most strategic employment and housing sites in Greater Manchester. This includes the Northern Gateway site, which is one of the largest employment allocations in the country and residential sites that will deliver over 6,000 new homes and over 1.2 million sqm of employment floor space. This is in addition to the exciting town centre regeneration plans that are coming forward in Bury, Radcliffe and Prestwich.


The Council's Development Management service is an integral part of the delivery of these sites, bringing knowledge and experience on ensuring robust applications can be submitted and progressed through the decision making process smoothly.


We are looking for a Town Planning Development Management officer, that will work alongside the Head of Development Management and an existing team members in providing the support and expertise to deal with some exciting workloads in a busy but successful team. You will play a key role in bringing forward development of the Borough and experience depending, processing more complex planning application proposals. Having a number of Conservation Areas and some 300 listed buildings, conservation considerations is also an important part of our considerations.



Knowledge of minor to major development schemes would be essential and to have a good degree of understanding planning issues, planning law and Environmental Impact Assessment.

About the role

The successful candidate would be expected to deal with a caseload / range of planning applications from minor commercial and housing development to extensive regeneration schemes including commercial and housing proposals. You would also be expected to mentor less experienced staff and where necessary providing experience and guidance in their caseload and this would be an opportunity to develop yourself to deal with more complex planning matters.


Previous experience of working either in Development Management or other related discipline would be very helpful, but as the post is career graded, it would also be a role that you can learn and grow into.


Having a Town Planning or related degree would be desired but a related non-planning specific degree would be expected.



If you feel that you can play a positive role in our service, please contact us for further details about this exciting role.



Normal hours of work are 37 hours per week based around the usual business working week. Dependent on service requirements, you may be required to work on a rota basis.

Benefits of working for Bury Council

To hear about the benefits for working with Bury Council, please visit A good employer | greater jobs

We support employees to work with agility, where appropriate for the post and service requirements.

We are committed to Bury being an equal society that recognises values and embraces all people, regardless of any difference, for the skills, abilities and experiences they bring into the workforce and the wider community. Therefore we guarantee an interview for disabled people, looked after children/ care leavers, armed forces personnel (including reservists and veterans) and carers of adults or disabled children if they meet the essential criteria.

Next steps

For an informal chat regarding the role please contact David Marno on 0161 253 5291.

Interviews will be held in person with the date to be confirmed.


It is anticipated that there will be a written test as part of the interview given the senior position of this role.