The Regional Activities Committee provides a wide range of services to members throughout the East of England.
Activities we organise and are involved with include:
- CPD training events
- Regional Awards for Planning Excellence
- Research
- Social events such as spa days and 5-a-side
- Networking events and dinners
- Activities for young professionals
- Careers advice and competitions
For further information on any of the above meetings, contact your Regional Co-ordinator, Fiona Fowell, by email at [email protected]
From 1 January 2024, we look forward to welcoming Jake Nugent and Ajay Padimukoth.
The 2024 RAC Members are:
Regional Activities Committee
Anthony Collier
Immediate Past Chair
Anthony Collier
Immediate Past Chair
Anthony works with Hertfordshire County Council through WSP, specialising in transport and strategic planning. Anthony has a background and interest in healthy and active travel and now brings that to his work on infrastructure planning, settlement strategies and site masterplans.
Anthony regularly presents at Hertfordshire University, supporting their growing transport and planning courses.
Adam Banham
South Norfolk and Broadland Councils
Adam Banham
South Norfolk and Broadland Councils
Adam has been a member of the East of England Regional Activities Committee since 2012 and has served as regional chair in 2018 and 2019. Adam lives in Norfolk and works as a Principal Planning Policy Officer at South Norfolk and Broadland Councils.
Bethany Jones
Nations & Regions Representative
Bethany Jones
Nations & Regions Representative
Beth is a Principal Planning Policy Officer at Colchester City Council and has eight years of experience in local authority planning, having previously worked in Waste and Minerals Policy and the Lead Local Flood Authority teams for Essex County Council. She has a variety of specialisms from her roles, and her work interests include Garden Communities, Green Infrastructure and Community Engagement. Beth has recently started running and enjoys supporting Norwich City FC and the England Roses. She also loves travelling and exploring new places.
Beverly McClean
Suffolk County Council
Beverly McClean
Suffolk County Council
Daniel G. Wilson
Cala Homes (Chiltern)
Daniel G. Wilson
Cala Homes (Chiltern)
“Dan is a Chartered Town Planner who specialises in delivering sustainable developments that transform places and leave a positive, lasting impact on local communities through holistic, inclusive growth. Dan is experienced in delivering strategic urban extensions, a brand-new garden village, urban regeneration schemes, student accommodation, hotels, and more. Since graduating from Cardiff University (MSc in International Planning and Development), Dan has gained over 10 years of experience in both the public and private sectors.
Dan previously sat on both the RTPI West Midlands Regional Activities Committee and the RTPI West Midlands Ball Committee. He also served as Junior Vice-Chair and Vice-Chair and, in 2020, was Chair of the RTPI West Midlands Young Planners Committee. That same year, Dan won the RTPI West Midlands Young Planner of the year award and, in 2021, was highly commended by the judges in the national Young Planner of the year awards. In a previous life, Dan was President of a Students’ Union and Regional Chairman of the Commonwealth Student Association (Caribbean Chapter).”
David Ames
Vice Chair
David Ames
Vice Chair
David is currently Executive Director for Stewardship & Development at Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, the community benefit society that owns the freehold of the Letchworth Garden City Estate, reinvesting surplus from its main property portfolio back into the community through its charitable commitments. This is the successor organisation to Ebenezer Howard’s First Garden City Ltd, which developed Letchworth in the early 1900s. He has worked in planning for 32 years, in both the public and private sectors, including within Planning Departments at Broxbourne (whilst studying on a part-time basis at South Bank University), Welwyn Hatfield and South Cambridgeshire District Councils. He was Planning Manager at Linden Homes (Chiltern) and an Associate Director of Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners before running his practice for five years.
David is a regular speaker on garden cities in the UK and internationally and a guest planning lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire. He has worked on various development schemes, including town centre regeneration, urban expansions, commercial development and many housing developments. In his current role, David is responsible for the regeneration of Letchworth Town Centre, the Foundation’s housing, environmental and sustainability strategies and the first expansion of Letchworth since the 1980s.
David Carlisle
Associate Director at AECOM
David Carlisle
Associate Director at AECOM
David Carlisle is an Associate Director at AECOM where he specialises in plan making and planning for large-scale new communities providing support to: developers; Local Planning Authorities; and neighbourhood planning groups. He works collaboratively with Government departments and non-departmental public bodies on site promotion, viability and green/blue infrastructure projects. Prior to joining AECOM, he was a member of Croydon’s spatial planning team (2006 – 2012) and worked on the Local Plan from inception through to adoption. David helps supporting employees through the Assessment of Professional Competence and contributes to Continuing Professional Development activities.
Errin Marshall
Savills & RTPI East of England Young Planner Chair
Errin Marshall
Savills & RTPI East of England Young Planner Chair
Errin is a Graduate Planner at Savills in their Cambridge office. Having graduated from Queen’s University of Belfast in 2020, Errin joined the RTPI Masters Apprenticeship scheme at Savills and is currently working towards her chartered membership status.
Graham Bloomfield
William H Brown
Graham Bloomfield
William H Brown
Graham is Land & Planning Partner for William H Brown, heading up their Land & Planning service for clients and landowners. He has been employed in planning since 2003 with significant experience comprising local authority, consultancy, regeneration, housebuilder and developer roles, becoming a Chartered Planner in 2010. Graham was formerly the Young Planners’ Representative for RTPI East of England and has been a Member of the RAC since 2013. He has a particular interest in the APC process having been an Assessor since 2011 and sitting on the APC Advisory Board from its original inception in 2012 until 2015. He re-joined the panel in its new form as MAAP in 2020 and also provides APC training events on a regional and national basis.
Jake Nugent
Endurance Estates Limited
Jake Nugent
Endurance Estates Limited
Jake is an Associate Director at Endurance Estates Land Promotion Ltd, where he focuses on the promotion of residential and commercial developments through both Local Plans and Planning Applications. Before joining Endurance Estates in 2018, he worked in Planning Consultancy in London and Cambridge. Jake was previously a member of the EE RAC between 2015-2019 as well as an APC Assessor.
John Dagg
Regional Chair
John Dagg
Regional Chair
John is a barrister, specialising in planning and property, having qualified initially as a town planner . He studied at Durham and Liverpool Universities and worked for City, County and Borough Authorities on both development plans and development management before joining the Bar. He attended the Inns of Court School of Law and trained in London Chambers. He practised for many years in London before joining Trinity Chambers , Chelmsford .
He has undertaken a wide variety of planning and related cases for planning authorities, parish councils, residents' groups, trading firms , universities , schools , churches and individuals. Much of his work is in the East of England and London. Recently it has included
some major residential appeal inquiries ,enforcement appeals , local plan examinations and appearances in the Magistrates' and Crown Courts , the High Court and the Court of Appeal.
For several years he has been a member of the East of England RTPI Regional Activities Committee and has organised the Region's annual planning law update conference in Cambridge.
John Sturzaker
Ebenezer Howard Professor of Planning at the University of Hertfordshire
John Sturzaker
Ebenezer Howard Professor of Planning at the University of Hertfordshire
As of April 2021 John will be the Ebenezer Howard Professor of Planning at the University of Hertfordshire. John has a background including experience in planning practice and academia, having worked initially in planning policy in the North East of England before studying for a PhD on rural affordable housing. From 2010 he worked at the University of Liverpool, his research and teaching focussing on rural planning & housing and neighbourhood/community planning. John was elected as a Fellow of the RTPI in 2019.
Lee Melin
Lee Melin
Lee is a Chartered Town Planner with more than 25 years’ experience, the majority of which has been gained in planning consultancy in London and the East of England. He is currently employed as a Planning Manager for regional house builder, Hill, working across their portfolio of projects. Lee has been a member of the Regional Activities Committee since 2015 and is the serving Honorary Secretary of the East of England branch.
Peter Geraghty
Hertsmere Borough Council
Peter Geraghty
Hertsmere Borough Council
Currently Executive Director at Hertsmere Borough Council. Peter is an as experienced practitioner having worked across all sectors – private, public and voluntary. He has over thirty years’ experience working in the fields of planning and development. Peter has held senior leadership roles in several local authorities including at Southend on Sea Borough Council, where he was Director of Planning and Transport. Peter was also Chief Planning Officer for Brentwood Borough Council in Essex and Head of Planning and Conservation at Broadland District Council in Norfolk where he had responsibility for managing the authority’s planning service and advising on major development proposals.
Phil Grant
Axis
Phil Grant
Axis
Robert Purton
David Lock Associates (Co-opt)
Robert Purton
David Lock Associates (Co-opt)
A recognised expert in his field with over 30 years of development experience. He has been bi-annually elected on to the East of England Regional Royal Town Planning Institute’s Management Board since 1995. After graduating from Oxford Polytechnic’s planning school Robert worked in both West Berkshire and then the City and District of St Albans Councils. Robert is a Director at David Lock Associates where for the last 21 years he has advised on the provision of strategies to deliver implementable industrial and commercial planning permissions. This work extends from regional promotion, resolving site specific constraints – such as contamination, co-ordinating projects teams, negotiating planning obligations and advising on the implementation of schemes. Much of his work involves delivering logistics, power, energy, data centres and both large scale City centre office and health care facilities.
Student/Licentiate Members
Alexia Kallini
Hertsmere Borough Council
Alexia Kallini
Hertsmere Borough Council
Alexia Kallini is a Planning Officer at Hertsmere Borough Council, focusing on development management. Following her undergraduate studies in Civil Engineering in Greece, Alexia attended the City Planning, MSc at the University of Glasgow (2019-2020) and served as the Student Representative for RTPI West of Scotland until December 2020. Alexia has a passion for urban conservation and the historic environment.
Affiliate
Ajay Padimukoth (Nair)
IBU Consulting
Ajay Padimukoth (Nair)
IBU Consulting
He is a Member of the East of England Regional Activities Committee 2024 and an Affiliate Member of RTPI. He was a member of American Planning Association (APA) and an Assocaite Member of Institute of Town Planners, India (ITPI). He is a founder CEO of development related consulting practice in India & Singapore on planning, architecture, engineering, solutions, sustainability, operations and management areas. He earned his academic credentials of International Smart City Executive studies (Graduate School Design, Harvard University, MSc in Geography, Statistics & Economics (Kerala University, India) and Masters in Urban & Regional Planning (with Urban Design & Environmental Planning specialization, CEPT University, India), MBA (College of Business & Analytics, S. Illinois University, USA).
He worked for 30+ years in Urban & Regional Planning and Development sector for Government Agencies, private Consultancies in Singapore, India, Qatar, USA before being with RTPI. He worked with national and international consulting houses like HOK, Atkins (USA), Fugro EarthData, DTS in the private sector. He is involved with charitable, cultural and think tank (Europe, S.Asia), UN-HABITAT, Metaverse Std Forum, IAI CAD/BIM Standards, Geospatial, Land Data Exchange organizations to support and promote development sector. In his current role as Solutions Consultant, he serves FinTech and IT Services sectors in the UK. In the past, he worked for diverse City Administrations, Counties, State and National, Land Management and Transportation Agencies.
Ajay Padimukoth (Nair) is a regular speaker on professional, technology and sustainability national and international forums and academic circles in Singapore, Qatar, India, USA and in UK. His current topics of interests includes Sustainability, Environmental Planning, IT Systems/Solutions for Planning, Sustainability, Circular Economy, ReConomics/Renewal, connected SmartCity, Digital Twin, CityVerse, Industry 5.0., Operations and Management.