Eleanor - Planning Intern 2026

I applied for the internship program during my first year of a History and Politics degree at the University of York. I wasn’t completely sure which department to apply for at first but eventually settled on the planning department as I was interested in protecting listed buildings and non-designated heritage assets. From a political perspective, I was also curious about how the council came to decisions about big development projects.

I didn’t know what to expect from the internship before I started as I had never worked within an office environment before. However, from my first day I was welcomed into a brilliant and fun team who went out of their way to support and include me while I got used to working within the department. I was also assigned a mentor within my team, who helped me adjust to all the planning acronyms, jargon and systems.

During my internship I managed my own workload of planning applications, which included: householder extensions, works to protected trees, listed building consent and certificates for lawful development. This required me to put up site notices, communicate with planning agents, review the submitted plans and write reports. I also regularly attended department meetings and had the opportunity to attend multiple development control committee meetings, where councillors vote on the most complex or controversial applications.

One of the most valuable things about this experience has been how willing members of my team and other departments have been to let me shadow and learn from them. A highlight was when I accompanied a member of the conservation team to assess the roof of a fire damaged listed building. I also thoroughly enjoyed going out to a major housing development in Haverhill where I was talked through the process of how planners manage and make decisions on such large developments.

The rest of my time was spent working on our group project, alongside the other interns. Our project focused on promoting a service provided by the council called the Landlord Retrofit Hub, which supplies advice to landlords about how to improve the EPC (energy performance certificate) rating of their properties. We also worked on spreading awareness of grants and loans that local residents could apply for to improve their domestic energy efficiency.

I have truly loved my time at the council and will miss all the people I have gotten to work with. I have learnt so much about planning and I have really enjoyed the variety of projects I have worked on. It has been an invaluable experience which I would thoroughly recommend.