Stand Up, Speak Out, Calm Down: A Public Speaking Guide for Planning Professionals

You have three minutes to present your case to a committee that has already made up its mind. The inspector at the inquiry is watching you with an expression that gives nothing away. The parish council meeting has forty residents in it and one of them is already on his feet. Your voice does that thing.

This book is for you.

Written by a chartered planner with forty years of experience speaking at planning committees, public inquiries, parish councils, enforcement hearings, and consultation evenings where the mood was hostile before anyone opened their mouth — Stand Up, Speak Out, Calm Down is a practical guide to public speaking for people who work in the planning and built environment sector.

It covers managing nerves before a difficult presentation, structuring what you want to say so it lands clearly, reading a room that does not want to be read, surviving the hostile question, handling the moment when your mind goes blank mid-report, and finding a way to speak under pressure that sounds calm, credible and authoritative.

Planning professionals are expected to present, advocate, negotiate and persuade as a matter of course. Almost none of us were ever taught how. This book fills that gap — not with corporate performance techniques or TED Talk mythology, but with honest, practical guidance that acknowledges the specific pressures of speaking in planning contexts.

The butterflies do not go away. They just learn to fly in formation.

For development management officers, planning consultants, appeal agents, enforcement officers, and anyone who has ever stood up in a committee chamber and wished they were somewhere else entirely.

Price: £6.99