Urban and Environmental Planning

Urban and environmental planning shapes the places where people live, work, and move. It addresses some of the most pressing challenges of our time: housing affordability, climate adaptation, transport systems, green infrastructure, and the regulation of land use in a rapidly changing world. Planners work at the intersection of policy, design, community engagement, and law, and their decisions have lasting consequences for the social and environmental fabric of towns and cities.

This is a discipline that demands both technical understanding and genuine sensitivity to the needs of diverse communities.

This four-year full-time programme at London South Bank University is designed for those who bring experience, motivation, and a clear sense of direction to their studies, even if their formal qualifications do not fit a standard pathway. The first year provides a thorough foundation in the knowledge and skills you will need before the main degree begins. A sandwich year is built into the programme, meaning you will spend a period working in a planning organisation before your final year, gaining direct professional experience.

Work placement is also a feature of the course, giving you further exposure to how planning operates in practice. London provides an extraordinary live laboratory for the study of urban issues, and the city's complexity is woven into the learning throughout.

You will engage with planning policy, spatial analysis, environmental impact assessment, urban design, and the legislative frameworks that govern land use. The ability to communicate complex proposals to different audiences, to facilitate consultation processes, and to balance competing interests are all skills the programme develops.

Graduates go on to work as town planners, development management officers, regeneration specialists, environmental consultants, and policy advisers in local authorities, central government, private consultancies, and third-sector organisations. Many pursue professional accreditation with the Royal Town Planning Institute. Postgraduate study in planning, urban design, or environmental management is also a natural next step.