Speakers at Rail & Property 2019

Speakers are shown in the order they confirmed. Return soon to see the latest additions.

Stephen Joseph

Transport Policy Adviser and Consultant

Stephen Joseph is a transport policy consultant, specialising in urban and local issues and in smart transport. He was Chief Executive of Campaign for Better Transport (formerly Transport 2000) from 1988 to 2018.  During that period, he led campaigns to reduce major road building, to increase rail investment including in new/ reopened lines and stations, and to highlight the importance of buses and the impact of cuts in bus services.

Stephen was a member of the Commission for Integrated Transport from 1999-2005, having been one of the panel of external advisers on the Transport White Paper 1997-8, and was a member of the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment (SACTRA) during its inquiry on transport and the economy. He was also on the steering group for the Government’s road user charging feasibility study 2003-4 and was a member of challenge panels or advisory groups for Government plans on high-speed rail, eco-towns, transport appraisal and the Local Sustainable Transport Fund.

He was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1996 for services to transport and the environment. He was appointed a visiting professor at the University of Hertfordshire in December 2018, having received an honorary doctorate from the University in November 2010.

Jools Townsend

Chief Executive of the Association of Community Rail Partnerships

Jools is chief executive of the Association of Community Rail Partnerships, providing strategic leadership to a team of 13 and across ACoRP’s members and partners. ACoRP works to support and champion community rail: a grassroots movement made up of 1,000+ groups and partnerships across Britain that engage communities in their railways. Community rail is all about ensuring communities get the most from their railways, promoting rail as a key part of sustainable travel, and bringing people together.

Jools joined ACoRP in 2016 after 10 years at Brake, the road safety charity, leading high-profile national campaigns, policy and community engagement work. Jools previously headed up communications and policy functions at regional charities Better Start Bradford and East Thames Group. Her experience also includes voluntary roles within community groups promoting sustainable living, including as chair of Streatham Common Community Garden.

Jools holds a Master’s Degree in Political Communication (focusing on how NGOs can affect social change through communications) and Bachelor’s Degree in English Language and Literature.

Jools is passionate about the third sector, promoting sustainable travel, and enjoying the great outdoors.

Prof. Paul Salveson MBE

Paul has spent much of his professional career involved in rail and community development. He started at the sharp end, at BR’s Horwich Loco Works in 1974 before progressing to operational roles as a guard and signalman. He developed the ‘community rail’ concept in the early 1990s which led to the formation of the Association of Community rail Partnerships in 1997, which he led until 2005. He worked in senior roles at Northern, Grand Central and more recently Arriva UK Trains (as Group Advisor, Society and Communities). He chairs, in a voluntary capacity, Bolton Station Community Development Partnership. His blog is at www.paulsalveson.org.uk

Norrie Courts

Director of Stations

Norrie Courts is the Director of Stations for Network Rail and heads up the National Stations Team. The directorate is working to deliver a consistent, high quality service to Network Rail’s customers and act as a focal point of specialist advice and best practice for its 20 managed stations. The directorate supports the devolved NR routes and station teams dealing with topics including; customer experience, operations, master planning, investment, soft services, branding and wayfinding. The team also supports route portfolio surveyors across the country dealing with approximately 2500 stations leased to Train Operating Companies.

Norrie has over 25 years’ business experience in operations, customer service, development, place making and regeneration.  He is a Chartered Surveyor and a member of the Institute of Management.  Prior to Network Rail he has been in senior roles with Sainsbury’s, Mitchells & Butler, Hanover Housing and the Canal & River Trust.  He has also been a Non-Executive Director for a London Housing Association, a Director for various commercial Joint Ventures and a Strategic Property Adviser for Newham Council.

Rory Brooke

Head of Economics, Savills

Rory’s areas of expertise include land value uplift and capture and economic and development impact assessments of infrastructure projects. He led on work for Transport for London looking at land value uplift associated with historic and future major transport projects including the Jubilee Line Extension, Crossrail 1 and Crossrail 2. Follow-on analysis looked at the specific feasibility of the Development Rights Auction Model (DRAM). He is working for Manchester City Council assessing the development and value uplift impacts of the High Speed 2 stations at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport. He is leading on work for Highways England estimating the development enabled by and economic benefits of the Oxford Cambridge Expressway proposals. He is overseeing work for East West Rail Limited looking at the potential for development around EWR stations.

Alexia Course

Director of Rail Operations, Transport for Wales. 

Alexia has spent her career working in rail. She held a number of senior business and commercial roles at Network Rail, including Route Commercial Director for Wales & Borders. Alexia holds a postgraduate award in Business Leadership and Management from Warwick University.

“Transport for Wales is transforming public transport in Wales and my focus will be to lead the development of a rail service that opens up opportunities for the people, communities and businesses of Wales and its borders. I look forward to working closely with our stakeholders to deliver safe, reliable services which meet the needs of our passengers

Simon Elliott

Rail Station Alliance Lead, Transport for Greater Manchester

Simon heads up the Greater Manchester Station Alliance for TfGM. A Project Manager by training, his professional expertise is in new station construction and how to best deliver regeneration and station improvements to meet the needs of the travelling public, the communities they serve and making our stations accessible for all.

Simon has more than ten years of rail experience working on the Birmingham Gateway Project, delivering two new stations on the East-West Rail Project and supporting the Network Rail Civils Assessment Framework. More recently, he has led the Greater Manchester bid to take over running rail stations in the conurbation which has now morphed into taking forward the Station Alliance model

Steve Leyland

Mobilisation Lead - West Midlands Stations Alliance

Steve is leading the transition to delivery phase of the unique train operator-infrastructure owner-local government alliance that seeks to transform stations into true community assets. Working within the industry’s existing contractual structure, the alliance is based on partnership and collaborative working to deliver change for the benefit of West Midlanders.

A career railwayman of 30 years, Steve’s background is in customer experience, stakeholder relations, project delivery, and specialist interim roles for long-distance, regional, and commuter operators. Previously holding senior general management posts with East Midlands Trains and most recently mobilisation of the West Midlands franchise.   

Steve splits his time between London and the West Midlands.

Paul Hinchy

Head of Transport, WiFi SPARK

With over 15 years of experience in telecoms and WIFi, Paul has worked with some of the key players in both the public and private Sectors. Paul is a forward-thinking champion of technology in the transport sector, and has spearheaded several exciting new product developments by WiFi SPARK. He is brimming with enthusiasm and instrumental in introducing new initiatives to use technology to improve the lives of passengers. 

Victoria Hills

Chief Executive, Royal Town Planning Institute

 Victoria joined the RTPI in April 2018 and utilises her 20 years’ experience and expertise in the fields of planning, transport and organisational leadership and development to drive forward the vision and strategic priorities for the 25,000 member strong RTPI. At a time when the profile of town planning and placemaking has never been higher, Victoria is looking forward to playing her part in making the case for investing in planning and planners, to deliver quality outcomes for future generations to come,  and put planning centre stage.

Victoria is passionate about planning great ‘liveable’ places for people, with an unrivalled insight into London’s governance; having worked for all three Mayors of London. Prior to the RTPI, Victoria was Chief Executive Officer of the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation, where she established the UK’s second Mayoral development corporation. Prior to this she was Head of Transport for the Greater London Authority, and before that held a variety of roles in Transport Consultancy and Local Government. In 2017 Victoria was made a fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and in 2018 joined the Council of the National Infrastructure Planning Association. An experienced public speaker, Victoria recently judged the 2018 Construction News Awards, and is delighted to be a judge for the 2019 European Women in Construction and Engineering Awards.

John Robinson 

Head of European Property – European Business of MTR Corporation

John Robinson is Head of European Property – European Business of MTR Corporation. John leads MTR’s European business drive to bring MTR’s technical knowledge and experience built up through the delivery, to date, of over 100 million sq ft  of OSD in Hong Kong to Europe. 

MTR Corporation operates MTR Crossrail, which will be the operator for the Elizabeth Line services for Transport for London, and was a co-shareholder of London Overground until 2016.  MTR is a co-shareholder alongside FirstGroup of the South Western Railways franchise. And in Sweden MTR operates Stockholm Metro, MTR Express, MTR Teknik, and Pendeltag commuter railway.

In Hong Kong, MTR is the operator of the rail and metro services, and has an extensive portfolio of rail-related property. It is recognized for the integrated development of its railway and retail, commercial and residential property interests. MTR also has operations in mainland China and Australia.

John is a Chartered Surveyor with 20 years’ experience in the development of large mixed use schemes having previously worked for leading Development Companies such as Muse, Kier Property and ING Real Estat

Kelly Lopez

Senior Property Development Manager, Transport For London

Having joined Transport for London in 2016, Kelly is part of  the Property Development team responsible for  transforming TfL property estate, and delivering circa 20m sq.ft. of development over the next ten years. Kelly holds a Masters and Post-Grad Diploma in Property Development and Planning.

Kelly is exemplifying the new approach TfL is taking to asset management and land redevelopment, whilst delivering regeneration projects in locations such as Northwood, Merton and other outer London centres.

Prior to TfL Kelly was at L&Q and was responsible for identifying and generating suitable new business opportunities to  meet their long term development strategy. Also managing joint venture relationships with joint venture partners on sites such as Greater Beaulieu Park, Chobham Manor and Fulham Wharf.

Allen Creedy

Director of Planning, SLC Rail

Allen has been Director of Planning since 2015 and leads his team of ten planners and designers. He works with clients sharing his expertise in realising complex development opportunities which require planning permission, listed building consent or environmental assessment.  He is focussed on ensuring clients can understand and realise the potential of their land and property-based assets through the planning process.

Allen is currently engaged on a number of high-profile projects on behalf of SLC clients, including Transport for West Midlands, West Yorkshire Combined Authority and the Coventry Station Masterplan.

Alistair Branch

Director and head of transport, Stephen George + Partners LLP

Joining Stephen George and Partners LLP in November 2016 as Director and Head of Transport,  Alistair has over 19 years’ transport experience in the road and rail sector. Alistair has established a strong track record record in the delivery of innovative, award-winning bus station, railway stations and multi modal interchanges for key transport clients including Transport for Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire Combined Authority, Lancashire CC, Leicester CC and Network Rail.

Alistair is a design-focused Chartered Architect with significant transport expertise who has the ability to solve problems, listen, understand and consider a wide range of constraints and project specific issues. He meets the client’s needs and aspirations by maximising flexibility, efficiency and cost awareness, whilst maintaining an overriding concern for design quality, sustainability, buildability and health and safety.

Alistair understands and shares ‘best practice’ transport design expertise and experience in the ‘safe working’ requirements and procedures within a ‘live’ passenger (infrastructure) environment.

Joseph Potvin

Executive Director, Xalgorithms Foundation (also, MOOSE Consortium)

Joseph Potvin leads design of the “Rail-Powered Property ⮂ Property-Powered Rail” (RPP⮂PPR) financing model, the revenue stream for which makes use of the emerging tech "Internet of Rules" (IoR) system specification and components which he co-designed. This is being pursued for a 400 km railway project in Canada through his parallel role as Director General of MOOSE Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises). Potvin served as a staff economist on the original core drafting team of "Canada's Green Plan" (1990). He then worked as a consulting economist in more than 20 countries, including with The World Bank and the International Development Research Centre. For a decade (2002-2012) he coordinated the Canadian Government's formal adoption free/libre principles and open source methods for software, including six years at Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat where he led business design of the High Resilience Environment that has since been relied upon by several national-level essential services (emergency response, search & rescue, acquisitions). He holds an MPhil from Cambridge (geographical economics) and HonBA (economics) from McGill. His current doctoral research at UQuébec involves meso-level systems design for enhancing micro-level performance that can proliferate to achieve desired transformative macro-level emergent effects.

Luke Holbrook

 Digital Delivery Manager, Enable My Team

Luke is a Civil Engineer who has experience on a number of major infrastructure projects in the UK, including the London OIympics, Crossrail and High Speed 2. Now working as a Digital Delivery Manager for Enable My Team, he specialises in Asset Life-cycle Management for both new construction projects and existing maintenance schemes. 

Stuart Kirkwood

Development Director, Network Rail

At Network Rail Stuart is responsible for generating profits from the sale of surplus land, increasingly by entering into joint ventures with developers to increase the receipts that in turn help finance the expenditure involved in operating the railway and thereby reducing the cost to taxpayers and passengers.

Key projects have included schemes such as Grand Central, the shopping centre anchored by John Lewis above New Street station in Birmingham that received a BCSC Gold award.

Most recently, Stuart has led the disposal of a portfolio of 5,250 assets, mostly railway arches to a consortium of Blackstone and Telereal Trillium for a price of £1.46 billion.

Chris Simms

Director, Burges Salmon

Chris is a director in Burges Salmon’s Rail team, the largest team of specialist rail lawyers in the UK. Chris joined Burges Salmon in 2017 from his previous role as the head of Legal and Compliance at Abellio. Prior to this, he spent five years as an in-house legal adviser at the Office of Rail and Road.

Chris has extensive experience advising on complex rail projects and the rail regulatory framework. Since joining Burges Salmon, Chris has worked on the mobilisations of the Wales and Borders rail services for Transport for Wales and the West Midlands franchise for Abellio. Chris has also worked on a number of depot redevelopment projects, including a project to secure significant beyond-franchise private investment in the redevelopment of a depot for a UK Franchised Operator.

At Abellio, Chris led the legal workstream on successful bids for the ScotRail and Greater Anglia franchises, and in negotiations with Transport Scotland and The Department for Transport on a variety of franchising and other issues.