Historic Places Panel

Ben is an architect and has chaired the Historic Places Panel since January 2022. Ben supports the work of Historic England through his work as a Commissioner and by serving on the London Advisory Committee as well as the High Streets Heritage Action Zone Programme Board.

Ben’s examples of wide-ranging experience include:

• Chair of HTA Design LLP, a leading multidisciplinary design practice specialising in housing and placemaking. Ben’s role also includes directing the practice’s internal design review processes and leading its marketing effort.
• President of the London Forum of Amenity and Civic Societies.
• Member of the governing court of Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects.
• Member of New London Architecture’s New London Sounding Board.
• Member of the National House Building Council.
• on the advisory board to Chimni Ltd., a company promoting digital property information.
• President of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) from 2017 to 2019, when Ben oversaw fundamental change in the institute's financing and governance and the instigation of policies in relation to climate action, professional competence, and codes of conduct.

Andrew is an engineer with a background in transport, architectural engineering, and urban design. He is passionate about how we can plan for low-carbon, active movement whilst at the same time creating great streets and enjoyable places. 

With over 30 years’ experience, he has contributed to many masterplanning and regeneration projects for villages, towns and cities in the United Kingdom and around the world. These include Poundbury in Dorchester, Derwenthorpe in York, Chicago Lakeside, and the new town of Madinat Khalifa in Bahrain. 

He has acted as an advisor to the UK Government for the House of Commons Select Committees on Housing and on Sustainable Communities, for the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, and for the Placemaking Committee for The Office for Place. 

Design guidance that he has co-authored includes Manual for Streets (for England and Wales), Designing Streets (for The Scottish Government), The Urban Design Compendium, The Qatar Urban Design Compendium, and The Abu Dhabi Urban Street Design Manual. Andrew has co-authored many design codes, including those for Upton, Northampton; Sherford, South Hams, and Trumpington in Cambridge. 

He also regularly sits on design review panels for The Design Council and Design South East, and is a visiting lecturer at Kellogg College, Oxford University.

Andrew works closely with The King’s Foundation to engage communities through their Enquiry by Design process and champions the design of liveable, long-lasting and beautiful places, which bring joy to all those who experience them.

Nairita Chakraborty is a Heritage and Townscape Consultant with over 18 years of experience in the public and private sectors. She also founded Revive and Tailor, a Heritage, Regeneration and Place consultancy.

Working within local government as well as in the private sector, she has worked on extremely complex strategic regeneration projects such as Middlehaven in Middlesbrough, the Old Vinyl Factory in Hillingdon, and Tottenham in Haringey. These have included extensive inputs into masterplans, regeneration frameworks, area action plans, and development management documents.

She has also advised on the restoration of several highly graded listed buildings, including their refurbishment and adaptive reuse. In addition, she has extensive experience in dealing with appeal statements and proof of evidence, including being an expert witness at public inquiries, informal hearings, and examination in public during Local Plan adoption.

She chairs Historic England’s London Advisory Committee, which is an independent panel of experts who advise the London & South East team on complex development proposals affecting Grade II* and Grade I listed buildings.

In addition, she is a Design Advocate to the Mayor of London, advising the GLA on various strategic sites across the region.

Nairita is also:

• an accredited member of the Royal Town Planners Institute (RTPI) and the Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC)
• a member of the Design Review Panels at the London Borough of Havering and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

Richard Charge is an experienced urban design, planning, and conservation professional with over 20 years in the built environment sector.

He is currently the Urban Design and Conservation Team Manager at Newcastle City Council, leading a multidisciplinary team and advising on major development, regeneration and heritage initiatives. Key regeneration projects of note include Ouseburn Conservation Area, Pilgrim’s Quarter, Founder’s Place and Forth Yard’s Area.

A Chartered Member of the RTPI and IHBC Associate, he specialises in masterplanning, urban regeneration, design guidance and planning policy.

Richard is a design review panel member for The North East Design Review and Enabling Service and was formerly a Built Environment Expert for Design Council Cabe, advising on national schemes. He has held senior roles across public and private sectors and contributes widely through teaching, design review panels, and professional advisory work.

In his role as Chief Officer of Strategic Place Planning for Aberdeen City Council, and Chief Planning Officer, David leads diverse teams with a broad range of responsibilities. These include planning, building standards, local transport and land use strategy and plans, environmental and climate change policy and plans, developer obligations, masterplanning, design and conservation.

David also leads the award-winning Net Zero Aberdeen and Aberdeen Adapts programmes, Aberdeen’s city-wide climate mitigation and adaptation plans, developed in partnership with a broad range of private and public sector organisations.

In addition, David is a director of the Aberdeen Hydrogen Hub, a joint venture between Aberdeen City Council and BP to develop a commercial-scale hydrogen plant in Aberdeen.

Prior to joining the public sector, he worked in a number of architectural practices in Ireland for over a decade, working on a range of projects for the Department of Education, Office of Public Works, Dublin City Council, and a range of private clients.

David is a:-

• Chartered member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI);
• Chartered member of the Irish Planning Institute (IPI);
• Previous convener of the Grampian Chapter of the Royal Town Planning Institute and a past member of the RTPI’s Scottish Executive Committee.

Honor has a wealth of experience delivering place strategy. Honor works on complex mixed-use projects all over the world, developing place visions and development strategies, in her role as Director at MurrayTwohig, global leaders in Real Estate Strategy.

Honor was formerly the Director of Placemaking at Battersea Power Station for seven years, overseeing the delivery of the first three phases of Placemaking vision. This covered the full spectrum of development from paper to established place and gave a unique insight into the repurposing of historic buildings within a wider regeneration context.

Honor’s experience also includes delivery of cultural partnerships, community consultation and engagement, events and heritage interpretation.

Daisy is a freelance facilitator and strategist with over 20 years’ experience of designing and delivering community engagement, participatory design, and co-production.

Daisy supports Local Authorities and Community Groups to negotiate ways through challenging situations, finding shared priorities and workable consensus. Current projects include drafting guidance on commissioning co-design for the Greater London Authority, and helping enable a network of civic societies to develop their shared strategy.

Daisy devises tools and processes that enable diverse voices to contribute meaningfully and collaboratively to decision-making, and to shaping the future of places and spaces in intelligent, imaginative, and equitable ways.

Daisy is also:

• a Teaching Fellow at The Bartlett School of Architecture, where she lectures on the history and theory of spatial politics
• a Mayoral Design Advocate for the Mayor of London, advising and providing project support to the GLA and local authorities on community co-design and social infrastructure
• on the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham Place Panel
• Chair of the Ealing Council’s Community Design Review Panel
• Chair Camden Council’s Euston Residents’ Advisory Group.

From 2003 to 2014 Daisy was a founding director of architecture practice AOC, which was twice short-listed for the Young Architect of the Year Award, and once for the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year Award. In 2014, Daisy was short-listed for The Architects’ Journal Emerging Woman Architect of the Year.

Jane has had a varied career, and now works in non-executive roles. In 2022, Jane was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to volunteering, heritage and the arts.

In 1996 Jane established Joined Up North, a consultancy business specialising in strategic development, regeneration and place marketing through culture, heritage and tourism projects. Jane was founding chair of Make it York, a destination management and business development company.

Prior to this work, Jane graduated with a degree in Drama and English from Hull university, and has worked in theatre, film, television, radio, the record industry, marketing and PR in London, and was housekeeper to the novelist Doris Lessing.

Jane is:

• Chair of Spirit of 2012, the London 2021 legacy charity, founded by the National Lottery Community Fund in 2013
• Chair of the Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site Partnership Board
• Director of the York & North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP)

Jane previously:

• Chaired the Culture & Place Strategic Advisory Group in Hull
• Served on the Regional Committee of National Trust Yorkshire & North East until 2014

Nigel is an arts manager and consultant and an expert in the contemporary performing arts. In 2019, Nigel was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the arts.

Nigel was Executive Producer for 14-18 NOW, the UK’s official First World War Centenary cultural programme. 14-18 NOW engaged 35 million people across the UK through 107 new art commissions in a wide range of art forms. Nigel was also a senior member of the Culture team for London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) responsible for the successful planning and delivery of the London 2012 Festival and the Cultural Olympiad across half the UK. His early career was as a theatre director, performer, and stage manager.

Nigel is currently:

• associate director of Festival and Events International
• trustee of artsdepot
• advisor to the Drummond Lockyer Fund for Dance of the Royal Philharmonic Society

Previous roles include:

• serving as Executive Director of The Place in London
• Arts Programming Director of Sadler’s Wells
• Director of the Phoenix Arts Centre in Leicester

Marie is the Founder and Managing Director of Cultural Zest, providing creative, cultural and heritage consultancy informed by more than thirty years’ experience in cultural leadership, place-making and regeneration. She brings a particular expertise in the creative industries to the panel.

Originally from Sheffield, Marie studied in Manchester and Newcastle before establishing her creative practice. She describes herself as an artist who became a cultural space-maker, having experienced first-hand the displacement of creatives during urban regeneration in the mid-1990s. This experience inspired a career dedicated to championing creative industries and ensuring the sector is involved in regeneration, heritage re-use and the animation of under-used spaces.

As Chief Executive of the Culture Trust, Luton, Marie built the case to purchase the freehold of two former hat factories in the town centre and secured investment to transform them into a thriving creative cluster. This innovative model created a sustainable ecology that ensured rental income was reinvested back into affordable workspace, commissioning, training and opportunities for emerging creatives, while safeguarding important heritage assets and strengthening the town’s cultural identity.

Marie also chaired the Creative Estuary Creative Assets Advisory Group, supporting the transformation of a 60-mile stretch of the Thames Estuary across Essex and Kent into a nationally significant creative and cultural corridor through the adaptive reuse of heritage buildings and creative infrastructure.

Previously, Marie was Cultural Strategy Lead for Milton Keynes City Council. Marie also served as Creative Director for Milton Keynes Arts Centre and Manager of Washington Arts Centre, where she curated heritage sites, expanded opportunities for creative industries, and directed public programmes.

Through Cultural Zest, Marie supports places and organisations with strategies for heritage engagement, cultural regeneration and creative place-making. She enjoys working across the country whilst also completing her PhD in Cultural Heritage, which explores the adaptive re-use of industrial heritage buildings.

Rebecca is an urban historian and is Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow.

Rebecca’s work is on the relationship between heritage and place-making, particularly the relationship between the economic and emotional value of historic places and how to develop people-centred approaches to place-based work.

Rebecca has published widely on heritage-led redevelopment initiatives in the 20th and 21st centuries. She also works extensively with the heritage and built environment sectors including advisory roles at both the national and local levels in the UK.

Rebecca is

• Place-Based Research Programme Director for the Arts and Humanities Research Council
• An Associate Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute

Adele is a town planner and urbanist. She is the current head of planning transformation for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).

Adele was previously the head of spatial framework for the Oxford and Cambridge Arc, and strategic planning manager at London Borough of Tower Hamlets, and numerous Local Authority planning roles.

Jennie has extensive experience in operational and strategic roles within retail, and large-scale transformative change.

Jennie brings eight years' experience work with the John Lewis Partnership, as a branch manager, steering group member and developing national business case. This included working with local authorities and MPs, collaborating on how to drive performance and try to avoid closures in town centres. Jennie has also worked on community programmes and business initiatives to increase local growth, ensuring investment was aligned not only with business needs, but with local place making strategy and community assets.

Jennie has worked on developing a business operating model, mobilising a large-scale restructure and design from both a business, and customer perspective. She has also worked with a local business enterprise group to support funding initiatives for small businesses.

Xanthe is a landscape architect and founding director of Xanthe Quayle Landscape Architects (XQLA), a landscape architecture practice known for its design quality and focus on the regeneration of market town and historic places.

With over 20 years leading and delivering commissions with both private and public/third-sector clients, she has developed substantial breadth and depth of knowledge and experience across landscape architecture, planning and stakeholder engagement, whilst working ‘end to end’, as well as strong collaboration and advocacy skills. She has particular expertise in landscape-led visioning, masterplanning, and public realm design and delivery in historic settings.

Xanthe is:

• a chartered member of the Landscape Institute (1997) with a Dual Honours degree in Plant Science
• a former Design Council design expert (2021-2024) and current member of the High Speed Two (HS2) Independent Design Review Panel (Deputy Chair 2021-2025)
• a long-standing member of numerous RIBA Design Review Panels, including Design North West (Chair), Design Yorkshire and Design North East
• a board member of Lancaster Arts (University of Lancaster) since 2024

Her work with XQLA includes:

• the design and delivery of public realm-led renewal for historic market towns, including Stafford, Brighouse and Holmfirth
• town centre visioning strategies, including those for Todmorden, Brighouse and Sowerby Bridge
• the renewal of Holland House Terrace & Café, forming the setting for this Grade I fragmentary ruin in the centre of Holland Park, London
• the setting of numerous other cultural and historic buildings, including Old Carneagie Library, Liverpool, Chichester Festival Theatre, Fitzherbert Community Centre, Brighton and Hen Bost Heritage Centre, Bethesda

David is a retired real estate developer who has, for the bulk of his career, worked in urban regeneration with institutional investors, local authorities and charitable trusts across the UK.

As a Director & Deputy Chief Executive of Igloo Regeneration for 20 years, David took a lead role in developing Igloo’s partnership projects with direct responsibility for projects in London (Bermondsey Square), Manchester (Islington Wharf), Cardiff (Porth Teigr), Leeds (Holbeck Urban Village), Sunderland (Vaux and Sunniside) and Newcastle (Ouseburn Valley). During this time, he was RICS representative judge for the Housing Design Awards and NED for the Awards’ organising company, Design For Homes.

David retired from Igloo in 2022 to undertake learning, teaching, and working on projects with purpose. He was subsequently retained as an advisor to Wirral Council’s Birkenhead 2040 town centre regeneration framework. In April 2023, David established and was appointed Chair of the Town Centre Community Panel in Birkenhead, partnering with Liverpool University’s “Groundswell” research project on providing qualitative data on social impact through the various regeneration initiatives being tested.

He is currently Chair of Trustees at Quality of Life Foundation and a Trustee at Brathay, which delivers outdoor experiential learning for children and young people from across the UK at Brathay Hall, Ambleside, and within community settings in Barrow, Kendal, and Bradford. In this role, he was appointed Chair of the NLHF grant-funded Brathay Blueprint Project to identify best long-term sustainable use and sensitive adaptation of the historic estate and heritage buildings at Ambleside.

Oliver is a Landscape Architect and director at HTA Design with over twenty-five years’ experience in placemaking, regeneration and the historic environment. His work focuses on the design and master planning of large-scale and complex sites from early visioning through to planning and implementation.

Oliver’s interest in the historic environment began when he studied Landscape Design and Archaeology at the University of Sheffield. He has since gone on to establish a specialist landscape heritage team at HTA, which started with the restoration of mid-twentieth century parks. He is now working on several Registered Parks and Gardens and historic town centres for a wide range of organisations, including local authorities, English Heritage, the National Trust and The Royal Parks.

Peter has a strong track record of working on innovative regeneration and development projects both in London and around the world. This includes the large-scale regeneration of King’s Cross and New Street Square in London, and the Al Bahar Towers in Abu Dhabi, which won the 2012 Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats’ Innovation Award.

At ECDC, Peter’s priority is ensuring the long-term resilience of the Earls Court masterplan and infrastructure design. The role centres around improving the integration of good design, purposeful technology and sustainability into the ECDC masterplan and buildings, from concept to operation.

Liz Stewart is a museum professional with over twenty years of experience in museum curation and community archaeology. She is Head of the Museum of Liverpool, leading the curatorial team’s work on collections, engagement, and exhibitions, and coordinating the operational management of the venue.

Following a degree in Archaeology (Durham), a master’s degree in Medieval Archaeology (York), and a PhD in Archaeology (Leicester), she has pursued the majority of her career with National Museums Liverpool. Working across visitor engagement, learning, and curatorial fields, Liz has developed a high level of experience in heritage engagement and co-curation.

She has worked on large-scale capital projects: the Museum of Liverpool (2005-2011) and the Canning Quaysides and Dry Docks project (2020-present). Through co-production of design and interpretation with local communities, Liz has progressed projects from early master-planning to construction and operation.

Leading community excavations across Liverpool City Region, Liz has researched and published a range of archaeological sites, including domestic and industrial sites, with a particular focus on the post-medieval to industrial periods.

Liz has been active in delivering many collection projects, utilising collections in heritage engagement with local communities, and exploring connections with the past, including Neolithic, Roman, and Industrial periods. She has a strong background in collections management with extensive experience in planning and delivery around collections development.

Liz is also:

• An Associate of the Museums Association (AMA)
• A Member of the Chartered Institute of Archaeologists (MCIFA)
• Co-Chair of National Museums Liverpool’s Ethics Group

Simon is an architect with over 40 years’ experience specialising in retrofit and refurbishment. He was lead author for the RICS’s ‘Whole Life carbon assessment for the built environment’ (2017) and 2nd Edition (2023). He is a member of the European carbon standard committee for EN15978.

He was co-author of GLA’s London Plan Carbon Policy SI2, and was special advisor to the Environmental Audit Committee for their 2022 report “Building to net zero: costing carbon in Construction”. He was a member of CABE’s design review panel for Greenwich.

He is past chair of the RIBA Sustainable Futures Group and was the first Stirling Prize sustainability advisor. He has spoken at international conferences, including Futurebuild, WAF, IGBC, and COP24, and the Royal Academy on ‘Architecture and Climate Change’

Simon advises NGO’s, developers, consultancies, airports, and government departments. His carbon report on M&S proposals to demolish their Oxford Street building led to their proposed scheme’s rejection by the Secretary of State.

Publications:

• ‘Targeting Zero – Embodied and Whole Life Carbon explained’
• ‘Embodied and Whole Life Carbon for Architects’

Atam is a Chartered Surveyor and has been active in the Development Consultancy sector for over 31 years. He started his early career at a Local Authority as a Trainee Valuer and subsequently secured his Land Management degree. He qualified as a Chartered Surveyor whilst working in the City of London with Jones Lang Wootton and then moved back to Yorkshire in 1996.

He has been active in the regeneration and development sector nationally, working with DTZ and King Sturge where Atam headed the northern consultancy team. In 2009 AspinallVerdi was founded together with Ben Aspinall and the business has grown with five offices including Leeds, London, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Newcastle.

Atam regularly works with public and private sector clients to generate deliverable development proposals. The firm is working for a number of public sector clients, helping them to formulate and implement policy (e.g. S106/CIL Viability Assessments, town centre retail strategies). Recent centres work has included Derby, Cirencester, Bristol and St Peter Port in Guernsey.

In the heritage sector options, optimum viable use and funding commissions are undertaken – generally underpinned with thorough market research and market engagement. Atam has recently advised on two Grade I Listed buildings where developers are proposing significant enabling development.

Atam’s work has recently included preparation and implementation of Future High Street Fund, Town Investment Plans and Towns Fund business cases. Work is now progressing on delivery of the projects.

Atam is:

• a Member of the RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) Planning Policy Panel and the RICS Valuation Professional Group Panel
• Director of the not-for-profit - Headingley Enterprise and Arts Centre (HEART)