I am an experienced professional planner / urban designer and project manager specialising in sustainable design and community development projects, with an interest, expertise and passion in urban sustainability and developing tools for architects, planners and built environment professionals.

I have part-time academic roles, primarily as a Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Built Environment at Northumbria University, as well as leading modules in sustainable design at Newcastle and Teesside Universities. There is strong academic collaboration and output from each of my projects with a constant theme of action-research and application. I run my own private sustainability and urban design consultancy based at the Baltic39 studios in Newcastle working on a range of sustainable development and strategic urban regeneration projects. Most noticeably these include responsibility for the winning masterplan for the Carbon Challenge site in Peterborough (the largest Code for Sustainable Homes development in the UK), short-listed city centre regeneration competition sites in Hull and Derby, leading delivery of Retrofit for the Future developments in Newcastle and Leicester, review of the HCA Design for Manufacture competition sites and working as part of the Homes and Communities Agency Delivery Panel.

Current projects include working with several housing associations in low energy retrofitting, the delivery of ‘test properties’ for new sustainable technologies, business planning for community-led energy initiatives, technical support for MMC small scale housing developments, and the production of sustainable design SPDs for York City and regional design guidance for North Yorkshire. I have held posts in the public sector as Head of the Urban Design Team at Newcastle City Council, as a Regional Programme Manager for CABE in Tees Valley, the Belfast Civic Trust, as within a number of private architectural practices in the North East, Yorkshire and Northern Ireland.