Speakers at Better Places and Parking World 2016

Giles K Bailey

Director of International Affairs, Travel Spirit Foundation, & Managing Director
Stratageeb Ltd UK 

Giles Bailey is an insightful thinker about business and societal challenges and the resulting need for organisational innovation and change. This is particularly in the mobility sector as well as the wider public sector. The basis for this experience is his extensive career at Transport for London and in consulting in North America and Europe. He now applies this knowledge, via being a Director at Stratageeb Ltd, in areas such as strategic and innovation advice to businesses ranging from digital start-ups to multi-nationals as well as public sector organisations, universities and local authorities. He also lectures at university, speaks at events and writes for the UK and international transport press.

Dr Jo Barnes

Senior Research Fellow, Air Quality Management Resource
University of the West of England

Dr Barnes has 12 years’ experience working in air quality management, policy and practice at local, national and European levels. Since 2008, she has been employed in the Air Quality Management Resource Centre at the University of the West of England, Bristol, where she has also completed her PhD researching the effectiveness of Local Air Quality Management. In this role, she has worked with and on behalf of numerous local authorities, Defra and the Devolved Administrations of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Greater London, other Member States and the European Commission to implement and develop air quality management policies and practices.

Rory Bergin

Partner, Sustainable Futures
HTA Design

Rory Bergin joined HTA as an architect in 1993 and became an associate in 1999, and a partner in 2013. In 2007 he formed HTA’s Sustainable Futures unit to further his interest in this field and to expand the range of services HTA can offer.

Rory’s role is to develop excellence in sustainable and innovative design, enabling HTA to achieve its objective of leading the field in sustainable placemaking.

He leads a team of specialists in subjects including SAP, EcoHomes, Code for Sustainable Homes, CEEQUAL PassivHaus, SBEM, Post Occupancy Evaluation, Life Cycle Assessment and BREEAM Communities. He has an input into most projects, overseeing the practice’s implementation of sustainable design and appropriate sustainability tools.

Rory and his team are responsible for the sustainability consultancy on some of the UK’s highest profile housing projects including Hanham Hall, the UK’s largest zero carbon residential project under construction. Rory played a pivotal role on the project during the bid stage and has since successfully steered this groundbreaking project through the complex maze of standards that the project has had to meet.

Rory has wide experience of Modern Methods of Construction and has been involved in a number of exemplar projects including the Design for Manufacture and Millennium Village initiatives.

He is actively involved in ‘retrofit’ refurbishment projects aiming to meet the 80% of CO2 reductions that will be required across the UK by 2050.

Rory is a certified BREEAM Communities Assessor, Code for Sustainable Homes Assessor, and SAP Assessor.

Graham Williams

Commercial Director
NSL

Graham Williams is the Commercial Director at NSL where he has worked since 1999. Graham is responsible for drawing together the ideas and expertise across NSL to provide services tailored to clients’ needs. He leads NSL's tendering processes, ensuring accurate costing for a wide range of public and private sector services and to develop operational proposals that match the policy objectives and service outcomes of the client and customer, allowing NSL Services to work in partnership with clients to deliver high quality, yet cost-efficient services. 

Dima Fadda

Traffic Engineer
Arcadis

Dima Fadda has been a traffic engineer with Arcadis for the past two years. Prior to joining Arcadis Dina worked with the European Commission-Directorate General for Mobility and Transport in Brussels where, among other things, she conducted research on the state of the infrastructure in Member States under the EU framework on Road Pricing Policy. She has a BA in Civil Engineering from An Najah University, Palestine and M.Sc in Transport Systems from KTH, Sweden.

Jonathan Bray

Director
Urban Transport Group

Jonathan joined Urban Transport Group (then pteg) in 2003 as Assistant Director, and then was appointed Director in 2008.

Before that Jonathan’s background was a mix of transport policy and transport campaigning.

As a consultant his clients included local transport authorities, the BBC and the Strategic Rail Authority.

He was also one of the founders and co-ordinators of the campaign against the national road programme in the early nineties and later led the Save our Railways campaign against rail privatisation. He has also worked for the Campaign for Better Transport on a range of sustainable transport issues.

Overall the hallmark of Jonathan’s career has been a steadfast commitment to sustainable and equitable transport policies. This includes playing a major role in some of the biggest battles for progressive change to public policy on transport.

Patricia Brown

Director, Central, and and Vice Chair, British Property Federation’s Development Committee

Patricia Brown’s advisory and non-executive work spans disciplines, sectors and geographies. The common thread is connecting: ideas, issues, places, people and ambition, focused mainly on achieving positive change and better experiences for people. She is the outgoing chair London Festival of Architecture, and was Deputy Chair of Mayor’s Design Advisory Group until May, helping lead its Good Growth Agenda. She is vice chair of British Property Federation’s Development Committee, and sits on National Trust and Great Western Railway’s advisory boards. She works in New York, including as adviser to Times Square Alliance and Columbia University's Center for Urban Real Estate.

Luc Warner

UK Marketing Director
Parkmobile Group

Following a degree in mechanical engineering, Luc Warner worked as a product designer for a few years before realising that he wanted to jump over to the marketing side. An MBA later, Luc embarked on a marketing, communications and change management career, mostly within financial services. Over the next 20 years Centrica, Lloyds Banking Group and Unilever have all found their way on to his CV.

However, the world of parking has never been far from Luc’s heart! Having met Harry Clarke – creator of RingGo cashless parking – in 1995, Luc has been involved with RingGo on and off since its inception. However, he finally succumbed and joined on a permanent basis in May 2015.

Today, RingGo is the UK’s leading phone parking service: 9+ million registered UK motorists, 126 local authorities and private operators such as NCP, together with an unrivalled UK wide footprint.

In 2012, RingGo’s parent company was purchased outright by the Parkmobile Group with the joint aim of achieving worldwide coverage. The group now works in partnership with BMWi, following significant investment by the latter during recent years.

Susan Claris

Associate Director
Arup Transport Consulting

Susan Claris is an Associate Director in Arup’s Transport Consulting Group in London. She is a transport planner and anthropologist with significant public sector experience and a particular interest in walkability creating more liveable, vibrant, safe, inclusive and healthy streets and communities (www.arup.com/walkingcities).

Susan is a Trustee of Living Streets, the UK charity for everyday walking. Susan lives in London and she describes herself as a passionate pedestrian.

Sean Cleary 

Commercial Services Manager
Cambridge City Council

Sean Cleary is an award winning and self-motivated commercial operations manager with extensive experience of delivering commercially focused projects in the public sector. Sean has extensive management experience in major organisational change and contract management. Through a ‘can do’ approach and a non-judgemental leadership style, he encourages others to acheive success and deliver results.

Paul Necus

Former head of Specialist Services
Cambridge City Council 

Paul is a parking specialist with more than 20 years’ experience of operational management and strategic development across the public sector. Having started his career in the field of social work and learning disabilities in Manchester, he moved into the parking sector with Manchester City Council where he successfully managed the parking operations until 2002, when Cambridge came calling.

For the past 14 years Paul has managed parking services on and off-street, introducing parking enforcement to Cambridge in 2004. He has transformed its main off-street car parks, developing a centralised network of pay-on foot sites. Paul integrated Shopmobility services into the day-to-day work of the in-house team, developing innovative arrangements for self-service by Blue Badge customers in Cambridge.

Over the past ten years Paul has pursued a more diverse management role, moving into other areas of public sector work, including bereavement services and CCTV operations.

Devrim Kara

Director for UK & Ireland
PTV Group

Devrim Kara is an experienced transport professional who has led the planning and design of major transport projects around the world. He delivered projects focusing on urban areas as well as regional and national transport networks. As the PTV Group Director for UK & Ireland, Devrim works closely with clients and professionals that use PTV Group software in developing effective, safe and balanced transport solutions globally. The PTV Group software is state-of-the-art and is used by professionals in more than 100 countries on innovative, intelligent and sustainable solutions that shape the future of transportation. 

Max Crane-Robinson

Commercial Director
National Car Parks 

Max Crane-Robinson joined NCP as a regional Managing Director in May 2009, taking full responsibility for the strategic, commercial and operational accountability across the Southern region. In October 2010 Max became Commercial Director and heads up the Marketing, Product and Pricing and Insight teams.

Max is responsible for defining and implementing strategies and innovation that grow long-term core revenues, improve the user experience and enhance NCPs value proposition for both consumers and clients.

Prior to joining NCP, Max’s career spanned retail, consumer goods and hospitality in both line management and consultancy roles. Following an Engineering Degree from Oxford University and post graduate study in manufacturing at Cambridge University his fist role was in factory management for Procter & Gamble. Max then moved into consultancy working for Coopers & Lybrand’s Marketing and Operations team before joining the Private Equity backed pub company Punch Taverns as a Director. Following Punch’s acquisition of Scottish & Newcastle pub division Max moved back into consultancy working for businesses that include Argos, Homebase, Asda and Avon Cosmetics in parallel with setting up a number of new ventures.

Max is married and has two children and is a keen skier and kite-surfer.

Mark Daly

Senior Tranport Planner
Nottingham City Council

Mark Daly is a senior transport planner at Nottingham City Council where he works to increase the uptake of low/zero emission vehicles. Before moving to Nottingham in September, Mark worked on the sustainable development team at Sheffield City Council for over 26 years. There he was responsible for the award winning climate change campaign sheffieldismyplanet.co.uk and care4air campaign. 

John Fox

Managing Director
Lucy Zodion

Born, and schooled in Leeds, I left Cambridge University with an engineering degree in the early 1980’s. I joined Thorn-EMI on a graduate training scheme. 

After joining Zodion Ltd I become Managing Director in 2004. I am a strong believer in the practical application of technology, where it provides a clear benefit. It is evident that it will be evolving technologies that will provide the key to the conflicting demands of more lighting, with reduced energy consumption over the next few decades. This provides exciting opportunities for all involved in the lighting industry

James Gleave

Foresight Analyst
Transport Systems Catapult

James is an experienced transport strategist, focussing on the transport and how it influences society. James applies his knowledge in technology, future trends, and public and sustainable transport to identify opportunity areas to deliver new technologies to benefit the transport sector.

James has worked on a range of projects in his 12 years of working in transport. These include developing local authority transport strategies, horizon-scanning projects for Government, mapping investment landscapes for intelligent transport technologies, and delivering sustainable transport behaviour change programmes.

James currently works for the Transport Systems Catapult. He is also Director of Consultancy Services at TravelSpirit.

Neil Greig

Director of Policy and Research
IAM Roadsmart

Neil Greig joined the IAM in 2007. His role involves setting the strategic direction for IAM RoadSmart’s Policy and Research Division, co-ordinating its research programme and working with the media and opinion formers across the UK.  He continues to represent IAM RoadSmart in Scotland and also in Brussels on working parties of the FIA Mobility Division.  He is also member of several road safety committees including the Prince Michael of Kent International Road Safety Awards Panel, Scottish Government Road Safety Partnership Board, Transport Focus and Highways England Roaduser Panels and the DfT Motorcycle Safety Strategy Group. 

Mahmood Siddiqi

Director of Transportation and Highways
Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea

Mahmood has been the bi-borough Director for Transport and Highways in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham since 2011. He is responsible for highway maintenance, network management, transportation policy and parking enforcement in the two London boroughs where there are as many differences as there are commonalities. He was instrumental in creating shared services following an in depth review of the department’s functions and budgets. This led to savings of 10% across the board within the first year, including a shared parking office which now processes the highest volume of notices in the country.

Mahmood graduated from Sussex University in civil engineering in 1986 and has worked in highways and traffic management in the public sector ever since. He began his career in Wandsworth Borough Council at a time when traffic calming was an emerging theme. He went on to join Westminster City Council in the 1990s where he was project manager for the refurbishment of Oxford Street. After a brief period in the private sector he returned to Wandsworth to lead their parking programme following the decriminalisation of parking offences. He then joined the Royal Borough in 2000 where he was tasked with delivering their flagship public realm schemes - Kensington High Street and Exhibition Road.

Dan Hubert

Chief Executive
AppyParking

Dan Hubert, founder of AppyParking, is on Smart City mission make parking a truly forgettable experience. His ambition to create a frictionless multi modal journey has earned AppyParking the recent accolade of the 15th most disruptive company in the world. AppyParking also won The Parking Futures trophy at the British Parking Awards 2017 for its One Click Parking solution. By creating the UK’s first on and off-street standardised parking data set, drivers can gain complete choice and peace of mind about any destination using Last Meter Navigation™. This saves time, money and fuel for drivers and saves cities from congestion, traffic and pollution. 

Nigel Hallam

Workplace Parking Levy (WPL) Senior Officer 
Nottingham City Council

Nigel Hallam has been the Workplace Parking Levy Senior Officer since April 2011.

He has been responsible for policy making and the development and refinement of all operational procedures and practices. Nigel has portfolio responsibility for the 10 employers providing the largest amount of liable workplace parking and has day to day responsibility for all aspects the WPL operation.

Jason Gooding

Alan Howard

IET Sector Head for Thought Leadership
Future Cities

Alan Howard works for the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s strategic engagement and partnerships team, leading its work on smart cities, population change, and an ageing society. The IET is a global engineering institution representing 167,000 members in the built environment, transport, energy, IT and manufacturing sectors. Its mission is to inspire, inform and influence the engineering community and society to engineer a better world. A Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Marketing, Alan was previously Director of Marketing & PR for the charitable community land trust managing the £140m Garden City estate in Letchworth, the world’s first Garden City. 

Iqbal Hamiduddin

Lecturer in Transport Planning and Housing
The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL

Iqbal Hamiduddin is lecturer in transport and housing at the Bartlett School of Planning at UCL. He is particularly interested in the social impacts of different housing and transport regimes and the policy implications on well-being, social sustainability and future planning practice. His diverse range of activities have recently included being a panelist for the Future Spaces Foundation report on the Garden Cities and as a judge on the Grand Designs Live ‘Self-Build on a Shoestring’ competition.

Andrew Potter

Technical Director
WSP I Parsons Brinckerhoff

Andrew Potter specialises in transport modelling, appraisal and on-going work with parking policy.

During the past few years he has worked with a Canadian transit operator to establish a pricing mechanism for its station car parks, an Australian investor seeking revenue forecasts for an estate purchase, and he has developed a business case for funds for a new car park being developed by a local authority in Wales.

An ongoing project has been his research at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst into methods to forecast more effectively the likely behavioural responses to changes to parking charges and parking availability.

​Martin de Heaver

Chief Executive
GEOmii

Martin de Heaver leads the Future Cities division of Ethos VO. He has over 20 years experience of the delivery of transportation projects in aviation, road and rail sectors, including Heathrow Terminal 5, Athens airport, Lisbon ATC centre and London congestion charging. Martin is currently delivering the Future Cities Parking project covering 5500 spaces in Guildford with fixed and mobile sensors, and over 200,000 UK wide. Martin is also Visiting Senior Research Fellow at King's College London.

Alistair Kirkbride

Executive Director
Carplus Bikeplus

Alistair Kirkbride joined the Carplus Team as Executive Director in October 2014. He has worked in various capacities in shared transport over the last 15 years. This has included previously working for Carplus on the Rural Car Club Demonstration programme, then as policy and research officer. He set up his local car club as well as the Lake District’s expanding visitor pay-as-you-drive network.

Most recently, he worked to develop transport strategy and delivery projects for the Lake District. Apart from the PAYD network, this has included a 2+ ridesharing scheme and electric bike hire network. This illustrates well his approach of striving to make the sustainable transport offer more attractive than private travel.

As an associate of Eco-Logica, he was part of the DfT Smarter Choices team. In this role, he also worked on a variety of demand management projects from workplace travel plans to exploring alternative logistics models for local sourcing of food.

Tom Henderson

Partner
Bircham Dyson Bell LLP

Tom Henderson is a partner at law firm Bircham Dyson Bell.  He specialises in the planning and authorisation of major projects, with a particular focus on the transport sector.  He has over ten years’ experience of advising on a wide range of statutory authorisations, including Workplace Parking Levies (WPL) and Road User Charging Orders, Development Consent Orders, Transport and Works Act Orders, Harbour Orders and Bills in Parliament.  Tom has advised Nottingham City Council on its WPL scheme since 2006, including scheme strategy and design, consultation and case-making, order drafting and DfT approval, and scheme implementation.

Giuliano Mingardo

Senior Researcher and Lecturer, Department of Urban, Port and Transport Economics
Erasmus University Rotterdam

Giuliano Mingardo is the senior researcher and lecturer at the Department of Urban, Port and Transport Economics (RHV) at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He has worked in academia since 2000 on several research projects both at national and European level mainly in the fields of urban transport and is a lecturer in transport economics.

Giuliano has specialised in parking policy and mobility management. He regularly advises local governments and large companies on these issues. Among others, he is a member of the Advisory Board of the Parking Commission of the Dutch Crown/KpVV and a member of the Scientfiic and Technical Committee of the European Parking Association (EPA).

Giuliano has gained academic qualifications from CA'Foscari University of Venice (MSc. in Economics), Erasmus University Rotterdam (Master degree in Urban Management) and Delft University of Technology (PhD in parking policy). 

Daniel Moylan

Chairman
Urban Design London

Daniel Moylan is a leading commentator on London government, much in demand for his insights and advice. He has served as Deputy Leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, Deputy Chairman of Transport for London under Boris Johnson, Chairman of London Councils Transport and Environment Committee and Chairman of the London Legacy Development Corporation during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

He is known for his radical, can-do approach to improving the cityscape and for bringing down the last remnants of the London Underground PPP.  He is currently a backbench Conservative councillor in Kensington and Chelsea and co-Chairman of Urban Design London. 

Andreas Trisko

Head of the Department 
Urban Development and Urban Planning, Vienna

Andreas Trisko Dipl.-Ing. is head of MA 18, Municipal Department of Urban Development and Planning, City of Vienna. He studied architecture, regional planning and development at the Vienna University of Technology. During his career he gained experience in architecture as well as in urban planning and deepened his skills in the field of large-scale urban development. He started working for the city of Vienna in 2001. Before he became head of MA 18 in 2013, he steered urban change processes in the largest Viennese district.

Jason Barbour

Product Director
Barbour Logic

Jason Barbour is one of the founders of Barbour Logic. He is a pioneer of intelligent systems that answer queries from the public more efficiently, correctly and helpfully. He led the design of the company’s market-leading products, Response Master and RM Self-Serve, winners of four innovation awards.

Laura Gardner 

Programme Manager
Camden Council 

Laura Gardner is a chartered civil engineer with a background in Transportation Planning. She has worked on a range of transport projects in the UK and Australia. Currently working as a programme manager for London Borough of Camden’s Parking Service, she manages an ambitious programme designed to deliver operational savings, improve customer service, and to support transport strategy objectives.

Projects contributing to the programme have included: delivery of efficiencies in parking enforcement through the use of ANPR technology; removal of pay & display machines and replacement with solar powered, paperless pay for parking machines; improved mapping and management of parking assets; and expansion of e-permits.

Keith Prince

Conservative Spokesperson on Transport 
Greater London Assembly 

Keith Prince AM was elected to the London Assembly in May 2016 for the constituency of the London Boroughs of Havering and Redbridge.

Keith is a former Leader of Redbridge Council, current councillor in Redbridge and a past councillor in Havering, served as a councillor for Gidea Park ward between 1990 and 1995, and was a non-executive advisor to Stephen Greenhalgh, the former Deputy Mayor for Policing & Crime.

Prof. Robert Shorten

Robert Shorten, Professor of Control Engineering and Decision Science at University College Dublin
University College Dublin

Professor Shorten graduated from UCD, with a B.E. degree in Electronic Engineering in 1990, and a Ph.D. degree in 1996. From 1993 to 1996 Professor Shorten worked at Daimler-Benz research labs in Berlin where completed his Ph.D. work, and was also the holder of a Marie Curie Fellowship. In 1996 he was invited to work as a visiting fellow at the Center for Systems Science, Yale University, commencing a long-standing research collaboration with Professor K. S. Narendra on the study of switched systems.

Since returning to Ireland in 1997 as the recipient of a European Presidential Fellowship, Professor Shorten has been active in a number of theoretical and applied research areas including: computer networking; classical automotive research; collaborative mobility (including smart transportation and electric vehicles); as well as basic control theory and linear algebra.

Professor Shorten is a co-founder of the Hamilton Institute, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, where he was a Full Professor until March 2013, and was also the holder of a Visiting Professorship at TU Berlin in 2011-12. From 2013 to 2015 he led the Control and Optimization activities at IBM Research Ireland in the area of Smart Cities. He is currently Professor of Control Engineering and Decision Science at University College Dublin (UCD) and retains a part-time appointment at IBM Research.

Professor Shorten is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, and a co-author of the recently published book: AIMD dynamics and distributed resource allocation 

Paul Slowey

Director
Blue Badge Fraud Investigations (BBFI)

Paul Slowey has a Masters in international law specialising in the philosophy of criminal justice and an MBA specialising in change management projects and programmes. From university Paul worked advised on transition management in local and central government for 10 years.

Paul formed BBFI in 2009 to help effectively tackle public sector fraud. BBFI has 10 staff including specialist technical and intelligence officers. They investigate over 1,000 cases a year. They then prepare evidence on behalf of local government and housing associations. Paul has three boys and his hobbies (other than Lego and colouring in) are reading, golf and running.

Manny Rasores

Services, Technology & Payments Expert
Mr. Parking

Manny Rasores is a parking professional and owner of an independent consultancy known as ‘Mr. Parking’. He has worked in the parking industry for over 35 years and was the CEO of an international equipment, technology manufacturer and servicing company.

As a parking consultant he specialises in advising councils on parking policy, electronic payments, review of services and introducing new technology to deliver enhanced customer services and cost reductions.

Manny is BPA Director and a Council of Representatives member, through which he is extensively involved in the development of best practice and improving the provision of parking standards. He also chairs the BPA Equipment Manufacturers and Suppliers group and the British Standard Institute (BSi) UK group of parking experts tasked with updating the UK and European parking equipment standards.

A keen supporter of raising and developing standards the parking industry, over many years Manny had been very proud to be a judge on the British Parking Awards and showcase best practice across the industry.   

Dr. Eime Tobari 

Associate
Space Syntax 

Eime Tobari qualified as an architect in Japan in 2002 and has extensive research experience in architecture and sociology. Her academic interest primarily lies in relationships between individuals and society through social networks and use of spaces. She obtained her first PhD in Engineering (Architecture) in 2003 in Japan and her second one in Sociology from the University of Greenwich in 2011.

Eime joined Space Syntax in November 2007 as a design consultant. She became an Associate Director in 2014. She has international project experience at both the building and urban scales.

Marten Sims 

European Director
Happy City

Marten Sims leads Happy City Lab’s European operations – giving presentations, facilitating workshops, creating experiments, performing site audits, and designing spaces, services and engagement processes. Recent clients include British Land and the World Health Organization.

Marten brings fifteen years of design-industry experience, and holds a Degree in Graphic Design from the UK and a Masters in Design from Canada. He is also the founder of the trans-disciplinary design studio Beyond; a former president of the Vancouver Design Nerds; and a member of Vancouver’s Mayor’s Engaged City Task Force. Marten teaches design, civic engagement and facilitation at Emily Carr University, Simon Fraser University in Canada and the Arts University Bournemouth in the UK.

In Vancouver, he’s known for creating temporary urban interventions and permanent installations such as a giant wooden nest for social interactions, hosting walking tours, and many other installations that foster sociability and creativity in public 

Habib Khan

1stBC

Habib Kan is the MD of 1stBC which advices a number sustainable transport companies on sales & marketing strategies.  He was responsible for introducing London Bike Hire Scheme and Zipcar into the UK marketplace and managed the regional offices for City Car Club.  His most recent achievements has been to launch the Bike Hangars onto the streets of three London Local Councils, there are now almost 1000 units in London alone.

Ben Stephens

Head of Parking Services
Bromley & Bexley Parking Service

Ben Stephens is passionate about innovation in parking. Ben has over 26 years' experience in local government, including over 10 years in parking. As Head of Service, Ben's greatest achievement to date is the successful merger of the London borough of Bromley and Bexley's individual parking services to form the Shared Parking Service, which was winner of the British Parking Awards' Parking Partnership Award in 2015.

Guy Douglas

Partnership Director
Clockwork City

Guy Douglas is an expert in developing ‘Digital Places’. He supports the Future High Street Forum’s Digital High Street Advisory Board, and co-authored the Digital High Street 2020 policy report to Central Government in 2015.

Guy leads the High Street Digital Hub programme currently underway in Gloucestershire, with a view to scaling up to a national High Street Digital Hub in 2017.

He has extensive place-management experience in both Fairbanks, Alaska, and with Reading’s BID.

Chris Wade

Director
People and Places Partnership

Chris Wade has over 20 years’ experience of running place-making businesses at a local and national level including 12 years as Chief Executive of the charity, Towns Alive. Previously Chris served as a member of the UK Government’s Future High Street Forum, where he developed the ‘Between the Lines’ approach to local parking reviews in association with ATCM and the BPA. 

Chris has held leading roles in town centre regeneration networks in Scotland and Wales and has been made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts for his national contribution to the regeneration of small towns.  

In 2014 Chris formed the People and Places Partnership Ltd. to provide ‘hands-on’ research, guidance and project management on community-led town centre regeneration, including practical parking solutions. People and Places continue to provide national networking and sharing of good practice through ‘Talk of the Town’. 

Nigel Bidwell

Partner
Farrells

Nigel is a chartered architect and Partner at Farrells with over fifteen years of experience. The practice is renowned for creating adaptive mixed-use complexes in London, delivering them to the highest standard of design quality and Nigel provides the link between the studio’s architecture and its urban design thinking. He leads a number of large-scale redevelopment projects for some of London’s most strategic sites, working with exciting clients to deliver schemes, amongst others, for Earls Court, Convoys Wharf and Old Oak Common.

Nigel is passionate about creating successful places for people to enjoy, dwell and flourish whilst addressing the challenges that our cities face today including population growth, land value and the modal shifts to sustainable forms of transport. This has led Nigel to lead the practice’s research into urban density and the future effect of autonomous vehicles on public realm and he regularly contributes to a number of the practice’s publications and articles.

Nigel actively enjoys understanding and debating design and he is currently a member of a number of design review panels including Hammersmith and Fulham, Wandsworth, for Home Group and more recently Design South East.

Emily Walsh

Associate Director
SYSTRA - JMP

Emily is an Associate Director at SYSTRA – JMP. She has wide ranging experience of Transport and Movement Planning, Urban Design, Public Realm Design and Masterplanning.

From a transport and movement perspective this includes policy and strategy development at a local and regional scale; capital programme development, street design, planning advice and expert witness work.

From an urban design perspective this includes masterplan development, both as a project promoter and as part of a planning authority; development brief production, public realm strategy development and implementation.

Emily has good experience of partnership working in complex contexts politically and organisationally with both private and public sector partners. In addition to this she has extensive experience of public and stakeholder engagement.

She has also been involved in the the production of a number of pieces of national guidance including MFS 1 and 2 and an expert panel member at MADE and OPUN. She also currently chairs the RTPI’s West Midlands Urban Design Forum.

Chas Ball

Director
C4ST: Centre for Sustainable Transport

Shared transport Chas' main interest. His expertise is in car clubs (car-sharing) and shared e-mobility in Britain. At Carplus Trust until December 2014, he was committed to promoting shared mobility and how it complements public transport, cycling and walking. His past experience in establishing a commercial car club operator (City Car Club), and supporting the development of car clubs across Britain at Carplus, has helped him understand the range of challenges facing mobility service providers. Through his participation in the board of LowCVP, he has become involved in the programme of expanding ultra low emission vehicles as well as the environmental impact of ICE vehicles. Chas Ball joined Carplus in 2009 as Policy Director and became its Chief Executive a year ago.

Chas was co-founder of City Car Club (originally called Smart Moves) – the first commercial car club operator in Britain, which started its first scheme in 2000. He left City Car Club in 2007 and moved into consultancy work. He is an active member of the UITP’s Combined Mobility Platform and is a member of the Transport Planning Society. He lives in West Yorkshire.

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Robert Huxford

Director
Urban Design Group

Robert Huxford is Director of the Urban Design Group, a membership based charity which seeks to support anyone who wants to improve people's quality of life in cities, towns and villages, through better design and management. 

He volunteers for a number of different allied organisations including the Institution of Civil Engineers and PRIAN, the Public Realm Information and Advice Network. He lectures in Highway Law and Liability, and broader public realm topics.

Ben Hamilton-Baillie

Hamilton-Baillie Associates Ltd

Ben Hamilton-Baillie originally qualified as an architect, before moving to work in housing, transport and planning. He founded the company in 2003. He has a lifelong interest in improving the quality of streets and public spaces, and finding new ways to promote safety, economic vitality and civility. He has specialised in exploring a range of practical measures and principles to develop and refine innovative street design, especially in the emerging field of "shared space". He serves on a number of regional design panels, and is a visiting lecturer at the University of Bath and the University of the West of England. He is a "Built Environment Expert" (BEE) for the Design Commission CABE.

Toby Thornton

Associate
WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff

Toby Thornton is a certified project manager and transport consultant with strong international experience from working on a range of infrastructure and development projects for both public and private sector clients. His experience includes transport design, masterplanning, strategy, smart mobility, commercial analysis and client management. This is complemented with extensive technical experience spanning micro-simulation, strategic and local level modelling. Toby has worked on projects across the UK, Europe, Africa, Middle East and Southeast Asia with particular on-the-ground experience in the UK, Azerbaijan and Hong Kong.

Toby has a proven track record on delivering transport and development planning projects: working with developers, architects, government authorities and engineers from project inception through to detailed design. He is driven to find sustainable and integrated transport solutions and is able to draw on a wealth of international experience.

Phillippa Banister

Senior Project Officer, Community Street Design
Sustrans

Phillippa is a people- centred designer, an expert in creative engagement and facilitation techniques with 10 years’ experience of community building, engagement and design projects working with communities in the UK and overseas. Passionate about the messy intersection between changing places and the people who live in and move through them Phillippa has led a number of successful community street design projects for Sustrans working in challenging environments across London to develop effective ways to respond to social, transport, health and participation challenges. An expert at engaging people in areas of deprivation to embed transformational change Phillippa is committed to co-creating a sustainable future for all at local, national and international level.  Phillippa has a Masters in Leadership for Sustainable Development from Forum for the Future, a degree in English and Drama from the University of Birmingham and is a Fellow at the Royal Society of Arts.

Katie Cleary

Director

Meristem Designs

Katie has more than 8 years' experience of working in architecture and design with a specific focus on health and well-being. Katie has worked with renowned architecture firms Arup, Aecom and Gensler to develop design strategies to promote better use of space for productivity and well-being. A passion for plants and a recently-gained RHS certification has been the catalyst to mobilise Katie, along with her Meristem colleagues, to develop a unique company that is focused on creating bespoke, design- led solutions to interior greening and green infrastructure projects.

Sue Vincent

Programme Manager

Urban Design London

Sue is former deputy leader and lead cabinet member for community engagement for the London Borough of Camden and a member of the development control committee.  Since 1989 she has been working in the field of urban design training, partnership building and planning; successfully giving evidence at a Planning Enquiry to preserve a street of late 17c houses within the historic Seven Dials Conservation Area.

Sue has contributed to the design and delivery of urban design programmes for local authorities, is a seasoned event organiser and a member of the Consortium currently developing the CABE urban design summer school.

Sue has also designed and implemented successful management strategies for companies and community organisations; she had nationwide experience of fieldwork management, survey development and analysis in transportation research, before spending 5 years in Africa, where amongst other things she learnt to fly, drive ex-army trucks and pole a dug-out canoe.  Sue settled in Botswana, leading fishing and photographic safaris in the remote Okavango Delta.

Sue is the Programme Manager at Urban Design London and the Director of Dragon Hall, an urban oasis for diversionary youth activities in Covent Garden and the Mary Ward Adult Education Centre in Holborn.