Our Approach

Our team members are experienced and well respected. We have long-established working relationships with each other and throughout the planning, development and design professions. Our enviable reputation stems from our wide-ranging project work and client base across all tiers of government, the private sector and not-for-profit organisations.

One of our fundamental strengths is that the people who are nominated to work on a project actually do the work.

Our approach is both pragmatic and dynamic. We work within the defined parameters of a project brief, while still being responsive to new issues.

We clearly recognise that strong partnerships lead to successful planning outcomes. We therefore adopt the 'PS' approach at all levels of every project:

Project Scoping - Understand the issues, define the challenge, and establish clear objectives.
Project Synthesis - Research, consult on and analyse the key influencing factors to create new solutions.
Pragmatic Solutions - Promote sustainability; create clear links between consultation findings and planning outcomes; and deliver tangible, action-oriented recommendations expressed in clear and concise reports and plans.

Our Values

We uphold PIA's Code of Ethics and our team members are all certified practising planners (or are working towards CPP accreditation) driven by the following core values:

  • honesty, integrity and social responsibility
  • strong and decisive leadership
  • respect for all involved in the planning process
  • protection of the environment
  • accountability
  • appropriate work:life balance

What We Offer

Experience
We have a wealth of experience across both the public and private sectors.

Innovation
We 'push boundaries and challenge conventional wisdom' where appropriate. This is clearly shown by our success in winning a number of Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) Awards. We actively contribute to planning debates through PIA and our own newsletter 'Planning Matters'.

Collaboration
We work closely with all our clients to ensure the best possible outcomes for them. If needed, we will not hesitate to complement our skills base by bringing in outside specialist expertise. And, most importantly, we ensure that all times our consultation informs our advice and that there is a clear connection between the messages heard during consultation and the directions we recommend.

Service
We are proudly 'top heavy', thereby ensuring that senior people with the relevant experience work on projects and are always accessible to our clients.

Competitiveness
Our size means we can deliver projects on time and within budget while keeping our overheads down.

The Minister for Urban Development & Planning released the Ministerial Mount Barker Urban Growth Development Plan Amendment (DPA) in June 2010 for public consultation. This DPA proposes to rezone approximately 1300 hectares of rural land on the edges of Mt Barker and Nairne for residential and light industrial use.

With the aim of ensuring that its community was well informed and empowered to comment on the Ministerial DPA, the District Council of Mt Barker engaged URPS to run a series of information sessions for the local community. These six sessions were extremely well attended, with more than 300 people able to hear about and ask questions regarding the Ministerial DPA process and how to go about getting involved in this part of the planning system.

In a letter to the editor of the Mt Barker Courier, Jean Lovell of Nairne said that "Mt Barker Council is to be congratulated for its commitment to proper community consultation" and that URPS was "highly professional and responded in detail to questions in an articulate, honest and informed manner".

This is evidence of the success of these types of community information sessions and the goodwill and engagement that Mt Barker Council has fostered with its community through the process. We also believe that this type of process leads to informed and valuable input from the community to key planning initiatives such as this Ministerial DPA."