5.1 Introduction

OIP's offices are in the Suffusion Centre, a soulless newish development of the kind Owen Hatherley (2010) described as the New Ruins, on a busy road on the edge of the city centre. We are on the ground floor and the windows are grubby, which we point out as a misjudged icebreaker to the receptionist. It seems to do the trick: she offers to make us tea, a deepbrown, no-nonsense brew.

We are ushered into a room off reception (see Figure 5.1). This is a fairly generic office environment, in common with most of the others we encountered (see Chapters 2, 3 and 4), and while we wait for David a series of projects roll past on a screen, some big, others small; some look great, others pretty standard. Later, David describes a varied mix of work, perhaps less ‘exposed’ to housing than other planning consultancies. Underneath the screen nestles a presentation pack of OIP Beer with a glass, commissioned from a local brewery owned by a relative of an OIP employee. It's harder to imagine Simpsons doling out bottles of beer to clients. David arrives, replacing our primary contact, Stanley, who has been at the high court longer than expected. In his email, Stanley described David as ‘one of my directors’. In his late thirties, his accent is hard to place. We outline the project. David has looked at our website and seems enthused.

The meeting is friendly, constructive. Midway, I notice a window cleaner arrive. David agrees that OIP fills a gap in our case studies. We suggest general shadowing plus some ‘episodes’ to follow. David's suggestions overlap with Stanley’s: an appeal at Overwood in a couple of months and a scheme with Alison, at Undercliff, going to planning committee soon. David consults diaries on his laptop as he makes the list. They have a weekly team meeting I can attend next week to kick everything off and finalise the episodes.

For a moment David has a predatory look in his eyes when discussing projects. Another time he mentions the “goalkeepers’ union” of planners (see Chapter 2) – united against the NIMBYs (not in my back yard) and politicians. We pick up some exasperation about local authority planners.