Farhana Hussain

My route into planning was rather unconventional, I completed an undergraduate degree in Law and worked in civil litigation for four and half years, specialising in clinical negligence, defending the NHS. As a child, I used to obsessively read about the built environment, architecture, and history, however, planning was never an obvious career for me, I just happened to stumble across it when I picked up a book called ‘Happy City’.

In 2016, I decided to take the leap, quit my job at a law firm and study International Planning and Sustainable Development at the University of Westminster. I really enjoyed the course, made some amazing friends, and even had the opportunity to travel to Brazil on a field trip. I kind of just fell in love with planning after that. I was lucky enough to have found a job as an assistant planner whilst I was studying for my masters, so I was able to apply a lot of what I had learnt. I still find it amazing seeing tangible results of what I have worked on.

I work on a mixture of residential, mixed use and large infrastructure projects. It ranges from a nuclear power station, data centre or airport. I look at how we can create an environment in which education, skills and workforce development can flourish; mitigate negative impacts on the environment and improve social mobility. The process requires working closely with stakeholders and the public to develop a strategy to provide long term, sustainable infrastructure for the benefit of the UK as a whole.