Welcome. I’m Steve Hesmondhalgh — planning consultant, author, and long-time veteran of the UK planning system, mostly encountered from muddy lanes, draughty village halls, and Planning Committees with unreasonably strong views about car parking or drainage.

This website is a home for:

• Planning at the Coalface – a blog of observations, opinions, and planning-life truths from over 25 years in development management
• My books – fiction inspired by the surreal beauty of rural planning
• Reflections on policy, enforcement, community politics, and the bits of the system we all quietly pretend make sense

I’ve spent my career working in and around rural planning — advising landowners, attending more site visits than I care to count, and occasionally writing things down when the bureaucracy starts to look like satire.

If you work in planning, care about the places we build, or just enjoy a dry take on barn conversions, enforcement letters, and the shifting sands of national policy, you’re in the right place.