RTPI London Planning Awards for Excellence - Ceremony

Dentons UKI planning team sits within our 200+ strong UKI real estate practice working from five offices across the UK and Ireland.  We are ranked as one of the UK's leading planning law practices in the Legal 500 and Chambers Directories. We are known for expertise in large-scale housing and mixed-use regeneration projects, CPO and infrastructure advice.  The range, complexity and profile of work – for national and local Government, developers, investors and infrastructure providers – stands out.  Our point of difference is the balance of advising both Government and investors on all areas of planning law.

This gives us a different perspective and helps drive our reputation for finding solutions and remaining at the forefront of legal innovation.  Our working culture - focussed on building consensus and solving problems within project teams and with counterparties - is distinctive.  We believe our values – brevity, integrity, innovation and common sense – are recognised as helping us to drive success for our clients.

Vistry Group is a top 5 housebuilder with a purpose to develop sustainable new homes and communities across all sectors of the UK housing market.  Vistry do this with an ethos of doing the right thing across all operations, and with our people acting by our values of integrity, caring and quality.

Vistry Group is uniquely positioned to lead the way in the UK housing market with a countercyclical business model featuring Vistry Housebuilding and Vistry Partnerships which combines both partner delivery and development-led capabilities and has a hard-earned reputation for delivery, quality and sector knowledge across all housing tenures.

Jonathan is Head of Spatial Planning at the Royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea. He covers three teams concerned with the Local Plan and policy making, Design and Heritage and a team concentrating on Good Growth in all its forms and bringing forward sites for delivery. He has worked in the public sector for over 30 years.

His background has been in Development Management occupying senior positions such as the Acting Head of Development Management and team leader. Jonathan is leading on bringing the Kensal Canalside and the Earl’s Court Opportunity Areas forward for development together with other corporate rejuvenation initiatives.

Sara Sweeney is a chartered town planner (MRTPI) and has worked as a Senior Planning & Development Manager at Kitewood Estates Limited, a privately owned development company for 7 years. Sara is experienced in delivering major residential and mixed use development projects in London and the wider South East.

Her role involves advising on new land acquisitions, formulating the overarching planning strategy, leading stakeholder engagement, promoting land for development and managing a consulting team to progress planning applications to determination.

Sara is the past Chair (2020-2022) of the Women in Planning London branch and has been on engaged with the London RTPI Regional Activities Committee for several year.  She was the RTPI London Young Planner of the Year in 2021 and a Judge for the Local Plans category for the Awards last year.

Oscar is a Chartered Town Planner (MRTPI), specialising in urban development and major infrastructure projects. He is a Manager of the Real Assets Advisory team at Deloitte.

He has held a proven record of delivering solutions to complex planning issues as evidenced in his roles at Homes England, High Speed 2, London City Airport and Transport for London. He has also won the RTPI Research Grant to deliver a research project regarding post-Olympics regeneration in London, Rio and Tokyo.

Oscar is RTPI London’s Young Planner of the Year for 2022 and a member of the RTPI International Committee. He has also been appointed as a member of the London Mayor’s Young Professionals Panel, advising the Mayor on the city-regional infrastructure and planning policies.

Rob is the chief planner at the London Borough of Haringey and also has responsibility for services such as climate & sustainability, transport & active travel and building control.

Rob has worked across a range of London Boroughs and has held leadership roles in the RTPI, particularly in chairing the England Policy Panel until recently.

Rob has led on diversity issues in the profession, having co-founded and co-chaired Planning Out, a network for LGBT+ planning professionals, and worked on diversity matters with the RTPI, the Construction Industry Council and Future of London.

Rob says “The awards are a great opportunity to be inspired and to showcase best practice projects that planners are pioneering”

Mike is a chartered town planner and MBA qualified manager with over 40 years’ experience in local government, most of that in London and 14 years at service head level and above. He is a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, formerly president of the Planning Officers Society and now chair of its Board.

He works closely with government and across the sector to shape planning in England. In 2015 Mike left local government and set up his consultancy, Mike Kiely planning + regeneration, to specialise in assisting local authorities to perform better and be more effective. His extensive experience in successfully delivering major planning and regeneration projects means he can add value over and above the chief planning officer role, constructively challenging accepted thinking and proposing innovative solutions.

Karen has wide-ranging experience in planning spanning over 20 years in a local government setting. She has worked across policy, development management and currently specialises in appeals as a Principal Planner at the London Borough of Bromley.

Karen has a special interest in  Social Value and exploring how it can be embedded into the planning process, particularly in relation to smaller developments. Other professional interests include the digitalisation of planning and ‘doing planning differently’. She is particularly excited by the renewed prioritisation given to this area by the LURA.

Karen is also very passionate about diversity in planning and supporting the next generation of emerging talent to make great strides in the profession. She is a keen mentor and is an active member of the BAME Planners Network Steering Group where she focuses on promoting a career in planning in schools and colleges.

Karen recognises that this past year, in particular, has seen a season of great change in planning and she is excited to ensure her time as Co-Chair engages with the veritable range of themes and topics that impact upon how we perform our roles as planners whilst promoting the profession itself.

Since completing her MSc Urban Planning degree at Cardiff University in 2019 Sian has been working as a Senior Planner at hgh Consulting. Sian was elected as a Chartered Member of the RTPI in August 2021.

During her career, Sian has dealt with a variety of applications within England and Wales, across public and private sectors including residential; retail; leisure; education; healthcare; infrastructure; and heritage projects.  These have ranged from small-scale building conversions to major housing developments.  Sian is committed to promoting the profession and delivering high-quality placemaking. 

Sian was previously the RTPI London Young Planners Chair in 2022 and RTPI Cymru Vice-Chair in 2019, having volunteered with the RTPI

Young Planners movement since 2018. 

Alice Lester MBE, FRTPI, is Brent’s Director for Regeneration, Growth and Employment, having previously been Head of Planning. Prior to that she led the LGA’s Planning Advisory Service, where she worked on a variety of projects to support ongoing improvement in local planning authorities and in implementing the government’s planning agenda.

Alice previously worked at Westminster, Camden and Islington Councils. Alice has been a Trustee of the TCPA, an external examiner for planning courses, is an RTPI General Assembly member, a LGA Planning Peer, is co-chair of the GLAs High Street recovery mission  and is on the advisory board for Women in Planning.

Michael is a Chartered Fellow town planner and honorary member of the Faculty of Public Health. He is an Associate Town Planner for healthy places at NHS Property Services. He previous led the Spatial Planning and Health programme at the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. He provides advice and guidance to support local system implementation on using planning levers to deliver healthier homes and places. He is Visiting Professor with the WHO Collaborating Centre for Healthy Urban Environments at the University of the West of England and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at University College London’s Institute for Global Health.

Euan is an urban designer and digital specialist.  He is a co-founder of Blocktype, a technology company that helps planners and developers better understand land capacity.  He also advises governments, local authorities and technology companies how to apply technology to the planning process.

He helped set up the UK’s multi million pound programme of digital transformation of the planning system, working closely with politicians, senior civil servants and policy leads to shape a vision and strategy, build technology, and write legislation for the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.

Prior to this Euan spent 16 years working as an urban designer, including six years as design advisor to the Mayor of London and his planning team, contributing towards a number of key planning policy and research documents and negotiating major development proposals on behalf of the Mayor.