Role
Senior Infrastructure Planner
Where
London Borough of Havering
Who
Shoko Sakuma
Researcher and Planning Consultant
Shoko, a Public Practice Associate in 2023, brought her in‑depth understanding of data‑driven planning to her placement as a Senior Infrastructure Planner at the London Borough of Havering.
Shoko began her career as a placemaking consultant on regeneration projects in Tokyo, before spending time in Myanmar, supporting a range of built-environment projects and developing her passion for community engagement.
When she moved to the UK, Shoko saw Public Practice as an opportunity to bring her experience to a new context. She was matched with an infrastructure planning role, an area she hadn’t previously considered. Reflecting on this shift, she noted:
I quickly saw how my skills – especially in GIS [geographic information systems] and digital tools – could have a real impact.
As a senior infrastructure planning officer within the four-person infrastructure planning team, Shoko’s role sat within the Planning Service – but working corporately across the whole Council, as well as with external stakeholders to ensure the appropriate funding, delivery, governance and monitoring of infrastructure projects. Shoko’s main roles were drafting an Infrastructure Delivery Plan, developing an infrastructure monitoring dashboard, co-drafting Section 106 Supplementary Planning Documents and Infrastructure Funding Statements, co-hosting monthly Infrastructure Steering Committee Meetings, and coordinating with the Greater London Authority.
When she arrived in Havering Shoko identified a critical challenge in the borough’s planning processes: fragmented and siloed data that hindered real-time decision-making. So, as part of the council’s wider modernisation agenda, Shoko developed a digital dashboard, aimed at improving the management of infrastructure planning. It allows officers across departmentsto be aware of other relevant schemes and to coordinate responses. It visualises, in real time, the funding, forecasts (eg, CIL/S106), spatial and demographic trends, and current project status.
"The dashboard was about taking the spatial and financial management data from different platforms – and integrating them through Power BI in a way that would be easily handled by the officers. Integrating contributions and connections with other ongoing projects supports more strategic cross‐sectoral discussions."
The dashboard became a vital tool, enabling a more collaborative approach and empowering officers to make quicker, more informed decisions that directly impacted the community’s infrastructure development.
The dashboard is poised to continue driving efficiency and collaboration – even though Shoko has now moved on – shaping more sustainable infrastructure planning in Havering for years to come.
