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BA (Honours) Planning and Geography

previously known as Urban and Environmental Planning

Three years full-time or four years full-time (including one year work placement or year of study abroad)

UCAS code • KL47

This course is subject to approval

Location • City Campus
Subject area • Planning, housing and regeneration


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At a glance

Learn how to plan, deliver and maintain well-designed spaces in town, cities and the countryside. You gain a broad understanding of planning in theory and practice and specialise in regeneration, environmental planning or design. Field trips in the UK and overseas and real world projects develop your skills and knowledge ready for the workplace.

Key points
• Gain a broad knowledge of planning and geography and specialise in regeneration, environmental planning or design.
• Go on residential field courses to London, Germany and the Netherlands.
• Develop your skills on a range of live projects in and around the city.
• Choose from three options for completing your Royal Town Planning Institute professional accreditation.

What is planning?
Planning is concerned with creating sustainable and attractive places where present and future generations can live better lives. Planners today combine analytical, creative, design and  communication skills to work out what development we need, where it should go, how it should be designed and help deliver it on the ground.

Why include geography?
Geography explores our understanding of cultural, economic, environmental, political and social processes and how they interact in different places and spaces. It provides a valuable grounding for exploring how spatial thinking can be applied in practice to make real and positive change.

This course

Understand the social, economic, political and environmental processes that shape cities and regions and the various ways in which planning can improve the quality of places and peoples’ lives. This course is really about making a positive difference and will appeal to you if you are curious about your surroundings and keen to influence the way our environment is developed and conserved.

You gain an understanding of cultural, economic, environmental, political and social processes and how they interact in space. You then develop the theoretical understanding and practical skills needed to plan, deliver and critically appraise well-designed places. You learn how to protect, improve and regenerate the environment in our towns, cities and countryside.

As well as gaining a broad knowledge of planning and geography, you enhance your career prospects in an area that particularly interests you by specialising in either regeneration, environment or design.

We have a range of teaching assessments to make your learning a creative and dynamic process. You attend lectures which engage with the theory about planning and its interactions with the natural, built and human environment. These are followed by seminars and workshops where you can discuss ideas and apply them in practice.

Your assignments are varied and involve you • writing essays ansd reports • analysing and presenting data • preparing posters • doing design briefs • making policy • assessing the impacts of development. You also develop your IT, communication and research skills which are vital for your future career.

In preparation for your career, it’s important for you to gain a hands-on understanding of what you’re studying. That’s why your classroom activity includes developing important skills such as working on geographical informational systems (GIS), Photoshop, spatial analysis and site analysis. These technical skills are supplemented by site visits, day trips and residential field courses to London and Freiburg in Germany.

Your studies are supported by facilities such as our resources room, where you can go for printing, accessing maps and storing subject-specific material. You also have access to our map room which contains networked computers running specialist software, such as ArcGIS and ENVI.

As well as being active in research, our planning tutors have worked in most areas of planning, so we are well placed for linking theory to practice, bringing in a range of outside speakers and having real world projects for you to work on. For example, we used plans for the development of a huge area of derelict land near Staveley in North East Derbyshire to explore ideas around planning and design for the environment.

You also have the opportunity to apply what you learn in a professional setting with either a period of work-based learning or one year placement. This is a great chance to choose a career path and improve your employment and starting salary prospects when you graduate.

As we are members of the international Erasmus programme you can study abroad in Europe for part of your course. We also have similar links with universities in other countries including Australia and Canada.

We co-host the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Yorkshire Conference series giving you the opportunity to mix with practitioners and engage in extra learning. Recent conferences have focused on climate change and renewable energy, urban design and delivering infrastructure.

Key areas of study
Key areas include • history, theory and concepts of planning and design • human geography • planning processes • design and delivery • regeneration • urban design • environmental planning.

Gaining full Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) accreditation
To gain full accreditation you need to do a year of postgraduate level study. You can do this through the following routes.

• Towards the end of the course, transfer onto the Master in Urban and Environmental Planning. It is the same course but with an additional year of study which prepares you for practice and is fully accredited by the RTPI.

• After graduating, do the final year of the Master in Urban and Environmental Planning as a Postgraduate Diploma in Urban and Environmental Planning.

• After graduating do the MSc in Urban Regeneration.

Field visits and hands-on experience are a vital part of the course helping you translate theory into practice. For example in the first year you do a site analysis for part of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and develop proposals for an outdoors art space.

Find out more about BA (Honours) Planning and Geography

Related courses

How to apply

You apply for this course through UCAS.

Fees – home and EU students

The course fee may be subject to annual inflationary increase. For further information on fees and funding see www.shu.ac.uk/study/ug/fees-and-funding

Fees – international students

2013/14 academic year

Typically £10,680 a year

2014/15 academic year

Typically £11,250 a year

The course fee may be subject to annual inflationary increase. For further information on fees, scholarships and bursaries see www.shu.ac.uk/international/fees

Assessment

• writing essays and reports • analysing and presenting data • examinations • research projects • planning and design briefs • professional practice reports • case studies • making policy • consultancy work with an employer

Work placements

Find out about work placements and how we can support your placement experience.

Optional year-long work placements are normally gained by competitive interview and are not a guaranteed part of a course.

Course enquiries

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Professional Recognition

The course, followed by an appropriate postgraduate year, is accredited by the Royal Town Planning Institute as a combined award, allowing professional membership.

Royal Town Planning Institute

Key Information Set The learning and teaching information shown in the Key Information Set for years one, two and four of this course are based on the modules chosen by full-time and placement students. The information for year three of the course shows the pattern for students who complete a placement.

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