Yasminah Beebeejaun (Bartlett School of Planning) has long-standing interests in community participation and co-production in planning and redevelopment, with a focus on the roles of race, gender, identity and inequalities in these processes, on which she has published widely.
Bob Colenutt is an activist and commentator on housing and planning issues. Bob has a long history of community planning experience, starting in North Southwark and then with the Joint Docklands Action Group. Most recently, he has published The Property Lobby (2020).
Hugh Ellis is Director of Policy for the TCPA. Prior to this Hugh worked as the National Planning Advisor to Friends of the Earth and on community planning projects at the Coalfield Planning Cooperative. Hugh has co-authored three books: Rebuilding Britain (2014), Town Planning in Crisis (2016) and The Art of Building a Garden City (2019).
Ian Harvey is the Joint Founder and Executive Director of Civic Voice, the national charity for the civic movement in England.
Rebecca Madgin (University of Glasgow) has long-standing interests in the emotional and economic values of heritage in the context of urban development and management, and in comparative urbanism. Much of Rebecca’s work has a participative bent, including her award winning work with skateboarders on London’s South Bank.
Louise O’ Kane is Head of Engagement at Community Places Northern Ireland, a charity and not-for-profit social enterprise specialising in community planning, and engagement, participatory budgeting, and co-production.
Gavin Parker (University of Reading) has a long-run interest in citizen participation in planning and has published widely on that theme, embracing work on: environmental protest, citizenship, advocacy, neighbourhood planning and other institutional spaces of participation. He published the books Enabling participatory planning in (2018, with Emma Street) and Neighbourhood planning in practice in (2019, with Matt Wargent and Kat Salter).
Clare Symonds is the founder and Chair of Planning Democracy, a charity established to strengthen democracy by promoting participation in the planning system. Clare’s formative years were spent chaining herself to trees at Newbury. More recently she has worked in both local government and the voluntary sector in a range of roles focused on environmental justice and community empowerment issues.
Nick Wates is an author specialising in community engagement in placemaking. His first book was The Battle for Tolmers Square (1976), drawing on his own experience as a community activist. His most recent The Community Planning Handbook (2000) based on experience during the intervening years as a practitioner helping communities plan improvements to their neighbourhoods. For these books and others he was awarded a PhD by Publication in 2020 from the University of Brighton where he is now a Community Fellow.