Secondment Spotlight – Toby Cowell

When Liverpool City Council needed additional planning capacity, Toby Cowell joined the team as a Principal Planning Officer for a three-month secondment.

Toby was brought in to help address a backlog of planning applications that had accumulated over time. During the short placement, he progressed around 30 historic and new applications, including several more complex cases, while also taking work from other officers’ caseloads to help ease pressure across the team.

By providing experienced support at a particularly busy time, Toby helped keep applications moving while giving permanent officers more capacity to manage their wider caseloads. His secondment shows how bringing in specialist expertise for even a few months can give local authority teams the capacity they need to manage peaks in workload and prevent backlogs from growing further.

Toby joined Waterman Aspen as an Area Manager in early 2026, shortly before starting his secondment at Liverpool. Before joining Waterman Aspen, he spent around four and a half years working as a contractor with local authorities. Although contracting gave him experience across different organisations, Toby reached a point where he wanted the opportunity to become part of a long-term team.

“I wanted a permanent role and to be part of a team that I could invest in,” he explains. “As a contractor, you can build good relationships, but your development is not usually the organisation’s priority. I wanted more leadership, direction and support.”

Joining Waterman Aspen allowed Toby to continue working with local authorities while gaining the stability and support of a permanent role. “It felt familiar because I could continue doing the type of work I already knew, but with the backing of Waterman Aspen and a team around me.”

Toby particularly values being part of a close-knit planning team that is working towards a shared goal. “We speak every day, and we are very aligned on what we want to achieve. There is a real drive to grow our team and develop new services that support our clients.”

Looking to the future

As Toby continues his career with Waterman Aspen, he hopes to progress across both the technical and management sides of his role. His ambition is to progress into a team leader role and, eventually, a senior management position.

His Area Manager role allows him to support colleagues and contribute to the growth of the Town Planning team. He is also interested in completing leadership and management qualifications to support his progression.

Toby’s next secondment at Somerset Council will give him the opportunity to develop these skills further. He will manage a small team and oversee major planning applications, combining greater leadership responsibility with complex technical work.

After several years of contracting, Toby believes Waterman Aspen has given him a clearer route forward. “When you are contracting, it can sometimes feel as though your professional development begins to stagnate. At Waterman Aspen, there is scope to progress based on what you achieve and where you want your career to go.”

It also reflects the opportunities available at Waterman Aspen: the variety of working with different clients, combined with the security, support and development opportunities that come with being part of a permanent team.

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