Full Circle (Almost): Taking Lessons from Geography, Research and Climate Action into Planning
After a 16-year journey in academia and research, I seem to have landed exactly where I should be.
In a few weeks, I’ll be starting a new role as Planning and Development Project Officer at Frome Town Council. Securing my first permanent position in over a decade is a strange, disorienting feeling — I’ve grown used to relatively precarious employment. In a way, this role brings me almost full circle. My first proper job was as a trainee buyer for a major housebuilding company as a 17-year-old. The unforgiving nature of the construction industry in the heady 1990s and 2000s ultimately pushed me away from that career after 10 years. But a degree in Geography and Environmental Management set me on a path toward a role that feels like an almost perfect distillation of the things I care most about.
Geography
In many ways, geography felt like the polar opposite of construction. I had always been depressed by the homogeneity and soullessness of the cookie-cutter new-build developments I was procuring materials for. Their limited range of standard “house types” and terracotta-buff-magnolia-charcoal colour palette seemed to smooth all life out of a place. I resented the necessity to prioritise profit margins above community infrastructure and environmental quality.
Geography, on the other hand — the broadest and most interdisciplinary of subjects, and the only one I’d really enjoyed at school — seemed to offer such a diverse and exciting horizon of possibilities. I had always loved the outdoors, was deeply distressed by environmental destruction and the looming threat of climate change, and hoped that I might do something meaningful about both.
A seminal moment was a two-week undergraduate field course in Iceland. I fell so in love with this landscape of fire and ice that upon my return, I immediately set about devising an excuse to go back. I successfully applied for a Royal Geographical Society grant to carry out my dissertation there, and in 2011 spent another six weeks studying hydropower development along two rivers. That experience cemented my passion for research and for understanding the connections between people, place and landscape — and in many ways, it set the course for the next 16 years.
Research
Encouraged by my undergraduate supervisor, I successfully applied for a PhD as part of a European Commission-funded water research programme. This time, I found myself in a very different but no less beautiful landscape: the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, in the southwestern United States. There, I continued my interest in communities and environment by interviewing stakeholders involved in a proposed copper mine.
With doctorate in hand, I went on to a series of research fellowships exploring similar themes — particularly the politics of energy development and net zero — from fracking to geothermal. But much like the construction industry, I found that the post-austerity, tuition-fee-driven, marketised version of academia was demanding far more of my time and energy than I was prepared to give — with little progress toward a secure position.
Climate Action
Parenthood, the pandemic, and a growing sense of alienation from conducting research in remote locations prompted me to seek a way out. We moved to Frome so we could afford an extra bedroom, but I also had a strong instinct that I wanted to work in and for my own community. I was very fortunate when a Climate Action Researcher post with the Green and Healthy Frome project was advertised not long after.
It’s interesting to reflect that this role, and the GHF project more broadly, arose out of a specific moment in time and place. I’ve written before in this blog about the rise of independent local politics in Frome alongside the transition towns movement. GHF was born in the wave of climate and ecological emergency declarations, net-zero targets, and the growing embedding of sustainability into government policy and practice. It also drew strength from Frome’s extraordinarily active voluntary, community and social enterprise sector — which is arguably even more vibrant now, in part thanks to the support of the project.
Planning
Yet the wider climate and ecological situation has since entered a different — and perhaps less idealistic — phase: adaptation. With the end of the Lottery-funded phase of GHF in sight, there’s been much discussion about its legacy — how to anchor the knowledge, skills, networks and resources that have grown in the community. One area where those lessons can clearly inform future decision-making is planning.
One of the things that inspired me to apply for the planning role at FTC was the story of Saxonvale. The idea that local people could organise and lead a different kind of development — one rooted in social purpose rather than private profit — was powerful. And the fact that the Council stood with that vision showed me what’s possible when communities and local authorities act together.
Environmental Justice
As I said in my interview, planning is often seen as a dry and procedural job — dealing with extensions, garage conversions and housing estates. But to me, much like geography, it’s far more exciting and diverse than that. At its core, planning is about our relationship with the human environment — and, therefore, our health — whether that is inside or outside of our homes, in our gardens and green spaces, on our streets or along our river corridors. Planning influences how we move, our safety, the air we breathe, and the water we drink. It's about temperature, weather, fire and flood, our changing exposure to extreme hazards and the resilience of our physical and social infrastructure to withstand them.
Critically, planning is also about how that exposure varies across the community — ensuring that the way we invest in our environment reflects principles of equality and environmental justice. Planning is about transparency, communication, representation and democracy–supporting the community to engage in decision making on matters that affect their immediate environment.
Full Circle
Despite the seemingly arbitrary and winding path that brought me here, I feel I’ve landed precisely where I should be. After a 16-year journey in academia and research, this role brings together everything I’m most passionate about — environment, sustainability, people, place and democracy — in a context where I can help shape real change, close to home. Contributing to place-making in my community is what made my time with Green and Healthy Frome so rewarding, and I’m thrilled to continue that work with Frome Town Council.
Stay tuned.
Thanks for sharing Owen! Many of these issues and the problems you have faced speak to me. We will have to talk again soon! Congrats on the new position with Frome Town Council.