Hello there!

While you are casually checking out this website, what questions are popping up for you?

There are plenty of town planning consultancies in the Hunter Region. What sets Creedence Planning apart from the rest of the bunch?

Who is Creedence Planning?

What do we stand for? What are our values?

Why didn't we spell-check our business name?

Cool logo, but what does it mean?

All very good questions!

Hereunder lies a deeper dive into Creedence Planning.

Creedence Planning is a small, local Newcastle town planning consultancy, currently run by Gordon Edgar, a  very experienced urban planner who has recently worked for the City of Newcastle council but has experience in multiple local council areas in multiple roles on many and varied development projects throughout the Sydney metropolitan area, Central Coast and, more recently, in the Hunter Region. This is the second iteration of Creedence Planning, which formerly operated successfully for many years in Sydney.

Large, complex job, small backyard job, everything inbetween, Creedence Planning is highly versatile in its capabilities. In spite of having worked all these years in the complex world that is the NSW planning system, we have never lost our passion for applying good design and planning direction to development projects.

When it is necessary, as our client, you will get an honest, professional appraisal of how you may need to alter your proposal to improve the chances of gaining a time-efficient and cost-efficient approval. We will ‘tell it to you straight’ rather than making promises that we know won’t ultimately come to fruition, thus avoiding disappointment, frustration and wasting precious time. We respect your vision and see it as our job to improve upon it and deliver its approval, all the while, taking you with us on that journey. Of course, as a client, you always have the option of listening to our advice and then deciding to maintain your original design outcome nonetheless and we will advocate respectfully and professionally for your proposal. In such circumstances, any potential re-design request from the consent authority would, at least, not come as an unexpected surprise.

It's true that the business name ‘Creedence Planning’ references the word ‘credence’, the dictionary definition of which is “credibility". We see it as our mission to establish the credibility or 'approvability' of your development. The business name also references the word “creed”, which is defined as “a system of belief.” It is our belief that we can spell a business name any way we like. On that note, the dictionary spelling of ‘credence’ never really made sense phonetically and so we have chosen to add another “e” in there, to avoid mispronunciation and, just because it looks better. Also, in reverence to a late 1960’s / early 1970’s rock band who we feel got the spelling right way back then.

Whilst the story of our business name might all seem a fanciful notion, it is actually a good illustration of how we might typically advocate for your project. We will build a convincing argument to the consent authority by challenging the established norms where it makes good sense to do so and referencing any relevant precedents to achieve what we would consider to be the better result.

Another thing worth noting when choosing a town planner is that you may well initially speak to a very experienced director in the larger firms but, more often than not, your job will ultimately end up on the desk of a more junior planner who will do the vast majority of the work in putting together your DA and writing the Statement of Environmental Effects. Gordon Edgar has worked in the planning industry in New South Wales for well over 30 years and he alone will be personally putting together your development application and supporting material, if you should decide to choose Creedence Planning.

Getting down to dollars and sense. We are sure you are probably wondering how much your DA approval will cost you. As a recent re-start-up, Creedence Planning is seriously interested in repeat business from its clients and building up a good reputation as a dependable, cost-efficient, expert town planning consultancy, capable of handling any job. Towards this end, our fees have been set at a competitive level compared to the rest of the market with equivalent experience/expertise. This means you get ‘more bang for your buck’ than you would with our competitors but you still receive an expert level of service nonetheless.

The colourful logo for Creedence Planning (above) has been with us for 20 years and it was a pleasure to dust if off and give it a second life. It symbolises Creedence Planning bringing together the built and natural environments harmoniously through the combination of good design, good planning and the juxtaposition of carefully chosen colours, text and images. Hopefully, it is a logo people will appreciate and remember.

That's us, how about you?

Why not start the ball rolling, tell us about your project and ask us for an obligation-free fee proposal?