Meet the Judges 2025

Jake is a Chartered Town Planner with over 10 years-experience working in the private sector. He graduated from the University of Manchester in 2013 and has worked in various private sector roles, including planning consultancy, multi-disciplinary practice and more recently the housebuilding sector. Jake joined the Regional Activities Committee in 2017 and has been involved in various Task Groups. He chaired the Education and Careers Task Group in 2018 with a focus on reaching out to schools to promote planning as a career and re-launching the annual school competition to give an insight into different aspects of the profession. Jake is currently Task Group Leader of the Awards, working alongside other committee members and judges to administer awards for planning excellence within the North West.

Joanne is the Local Plans Manager (North) for the Home Builders Federation and represents the members of the HBF in seeking to influence the production of planning policy in the North of England. Joanne is an experienced policy planner with more than 20 years in the profession. After starting her career in the private sector Joanne has mainly working within local government, contributing to planning policy for Stafford, Halton and Cheshire East. Joanne is strong supporter of the planning profession and is currently the Honorary Sectary of the RTPI NW region and has previously served as RTPI NW Chair and as a Trustee of the RTPI. Joanne is a member of the CPD Task Group and is keen to help to support our local members through professional development and other RTPI services and events.

John is a freelance planner, with a background in both the public and private sectors. He primarily assists LPAs with complex and stalled major applications, as well as with appeals, hearings and NSIPs. John also teaches at the Manchester School of Architecture, on the Masters in Architecture and Urbanism course. He graduated from the Master of Town and Country Planning programme at the University of Manchester in 2014 and became a Chartered member of the RTPI via the Experienced Practitioner route in 2020. John joined the RTPI NW Regional Activities Committee in 2022.

Holly is a Senior Planning and Enabling Manager at Homes England, with a background in both the public and private sectors.  She has experience of working on a range of complex residential projects.  

Holly graduated with a Masters in Planning from the University of Manchester in 2016 and became a Chartered member of the RTPI in 2018. She joined the RTPI NW Regional Activities Committee in 2022 and currently supports the Awards Task Group.

Nia is a Chartered Senior Associate Planner at Fisher German, based in Chester, she is the team lead for the North West and North Wales region. She graduated with a First Class Masters from University of Liverpool in 2018 and became a Chartered Member of the RTPI in 2020. Nia recently won RTPI North West Young Planner of the Year 2022.  She is passionate about the rural sector and planning for rural communities and agricultural needs which can often be overlooked. Nia likes to promote careers within the industry and mentors a number of Licentiates through the APC process.

Jade is a Principal Planning Officer for Salford City Council with 20 years’ experience.  During this time Jade has managed various panning submissions within the commercial, residential, renewable energy, and minerals and waste sectors within both the private and public practice.  In addition, Jade has undertaken the role of Community Planner to assist a community with their particular needs and volunteered with Planning Aid.  These various roles have provided an excellent understanding of the planning system (including planning policy development) with experience in stakeholder engagement.  Jade keeps placemaking at the centre of her professional endeavours, and is currently a member of the Regional Activities Committee for the RTPI North West.

Chris has been a local authority planner for over 40 years before retiring from Salford City Council at the end of June 2020. He has worked in five local authorities, three of them in the North West of England. For over twenty years he headed up the planning service at Salford City Council, and for much of that time he chaired the Greater Manchester Planning Officers Group. In over four decades, Chris has seen Planning subject to reform after reform from central government, and notwithstanding his retirement will be interested to see where the latest changes take us.

Jo is Director at Urban Imprint, a planning and design consultancy based in Cheshire. She is a Chartered Town Planner and Urban Designer with experience in commercial and residential schemes of a wide variety of scales working for both public and private sector clients. She enjoys teaching through community training events, working with students at the University of Manchester and delivering masterclass CPD programs via the RTPI. 

Lesley is Directorate Admissions Lead for Built Environment, Architecture and Acoustics at the University of Salford and Programme Leader for the MSc Town and Country Planning. She made the transition to teaching in November 2019, following a successful career in practice, with 25 years’ experience in planning, development and asset management for The Boots Company, De Montford University, Network Rail and The Arch Company. As a chartered town planner and surveyor, Lesley is interested in promoting multi- disciplinary working and collaboration in the built environment and introducing the next generation of future town planners to the profession.

Chris is a Chartered Senior Planner at Lambert Smith Hampton and has been based in the Manchester office since 2020. Chris has experience of working on a range of projects not only in the North-West but also across London and Wales having previously worked at DP9 in London as well as Savills' Cardiff office.  

He graduated with a First Class Master of Planning degree from University of West of England in 2017 and became a Chartered Member of the RTPI in 2019.