Summer Scheme Student Review

I very much enjoyed my four week placement at Savills in Southampton Planning. The Planning & Urban Design Team were friendly, welcoming and treated me as one of the team very quickly. They have been more than happy to teach me about what they have been working on and answer my many questions.

I think I was definitely valued by my colleagues. They were happy to give me responsibility, to teach me things and for me to join some important meetings.

My Mentor, his Associate Director and Director gave me a lot of guidance and insight into the work of Savills in Southampton in addition to an number of other colleagues and Directors. They only issue I had is that my Mentor was at times a bit snowed under helping prepare for a planning appeal hearing - but it has been very interested to find out about this anyway.

The office environment was relaxed but I was quite busy most of the time and did a very wide range of tasks. I also completed the Handover Project and LPA Factfiles for the area between tasks.

Quite a lot of responsibility - including the responsibility to lead on two small applications (Change of Use, Non Material Amendment), calculate Section 106 Obligations, write a Planning Statement for a Full Application, write a Phased Area Strategy as part of the implementation of an Outline Consent, draft planning advice, update a Conditions/ Section 106 implementation tracker and other tasks. I leased directly with a contact at Crest Nicholson by email a few times and met two developer clients - at a meeting in the office and at Winchester Planning Committee, all of which were valuable experiences.

I feel that I now have a significantly better technical understanding of the development management process from the applicant point of view and more broadly than when I began the placement. I now have a better understanding of a number of planning processes including: understanding what Environmental Impact Assessment is and the role of technical consultants in the planning process; knowing how conditions; informatives and Planning Obligations are used, worded, phased and implemented; understanding the structure of an application and the role of Non Material Amendment/ Discharge of Condition Applications; knowing how to navigate national and local planning policy to establish whether the principle of development is supported and gaining experience of a Planning Committee operation. I have also enjoyed finding out more about urban design, understanding the culture of the sector (and where I best see myself fitting within it), gaining an insight into the huge complexity of planning appeals from colleagues in my team and learning more about the significant mitigation required (ie SANG, SAMM) when developing near protected European sites. I have improved my ability at reading technical drawings and learnt about Savills as a business and about its non planning activities as an example of a major real estate services provider - sharing experience with the other Southampton interns in Development and Building Surveying has been interesting and valuable. Additionally it has been useful to research different routes to RTPI accreditation, find out about non-cognate graduate opportunities and the different career paths of colleagues. All these skills and experience will be very useful for my third year studying Urban Planning, Design & Management/ future Masters degree studies, my future career decisions and for when I start applying and working in planning for future internships and full time.

The atmosphere was very good - friendly, collegiate and relaxed. At times maybe a bit too quiet for my liking, but the team was lovely! The visits from a Director in another local office were particularly entertaining as was the appearance of maggots in the office, which caused quite a lot of excitement.

It was well organised by central HR overall. There were sometimes issues with joining in the London talks in the regions by conference call. Sometimes other regions didn't mute their phones properly and presentations for some talks didn't work. I think it would be valuable to have the opportunity to go to London or another office for a full induction day as GVA offered at the summer scheme I did with them last year, particularly to meet other interns on the Summer Scheme - particularly as I was the only Planning intern in Southampton.

Colleagues were very happy to teach me about things and tell me about their work, including Urban Design - even if I wasn't working with them. The Numerical and Written Test experience was useful - I think it would be good to be able to try and practice these before to improve skills, particularly the quite specific online numerical test which I was not very good at. Some more formal training sessions could be good - although I think it is most useful to learn as you go by asking questions.

Very good from a pay, working environment, training and support point of view. I am still deciding where in the built environment sector I want to work, but I will be seriously considering Savills' graduate schemes.

There was only three of us but we enjoyed meeting ups. We had two lunches. I also went to a welcome lunch with the team and two after work drinks.

£6.50 per day train fair for commuting. I didn't stay overnight in Southampton.

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