English Heritage and CABE urban panel

Joint panel which discusses strategies and developments that bring significant change to towns and cities.

The urban panel facilitates debate among those engaged in promoting and managing development. It ensures that the involvement of CABE and English Heritage is constructive and well informed.

Panel members include practitioners from architecture, landscape architecture, development economics, architectural history, archaeology, local government, retail, conservation and regeneration. Their wealth of experience and impartiality adds value to the urban panel’s engagement with local issues.

The panel has accumulated an understanding of best practice through its regular programme of visits (it has now visited 50 towns and cities). Review papers are published after each visit and further information is available in our Urban panel publication.

Celebrating 10 years of the urban panel

To celebrate the work of the panel over the past 10 years, we have produced articles by panel members on key themes of the panel's work:

Panel members

Les Sparks OBE (chair)

An architect planner who specialises in urban design and conservation and was awarded the OBE in 1997 for his services to Urban Regeneration. He was Director of Planning and Architecture at Birmingham City Council and previously Director of Environmental Services at Bath City Council where he was instrumental in establishing the English Historic Towns Forum.  Formerly a Commissioner of English Heritage and Deputy-Chair of the English Heritage Advisory Committee (EHAC), he was also one of the founding Commissioners of CABE and chaired CABE’s Design Review Committee.  He now chairs the Regional Design Review Panel for the West Midlands, and chairs advisory panels in Bath, Nottingham and Plymouth.  During his period in Birmingham he was closely involved in the development of Brindleyplace, the new Bull Ring, and the award winning Victoria Square.

Chris Smith OBE (panel co-ordinator)

A historic environment management professional since 1974 and was awarded the OBE for services to conservation in 1995. Now English Heritage’s planning and development director for the west, he has worked for local authorities and community development trusts and with many regeneration agencies. He has co-ordinated the work of the urban panel and written its review papers since 2002.

Narendra Bajaria

A qualified architect and a chartered town planner, now retired. He has extensive practical experience in built and natural environment in the public sector. He chairs the Peak District National Park Authority, Board of South Yorkshire Housing Association and Board of Yorkshire Arts Space Society and was until recently a CABE regional representative. He led on major corporate regeneration projects such as the East End Park which won the Regional White Rose Award and the Peace Gardens (in the Heart of the City project) within Sheffield City Centre which won the National RIBA, RTPI and Civic Trust Awards.

Alan Baxter

An engineer and urban designer whose wide-ranging interests and projects go beyond the usual realm of engineering. Alan Baxter & Associates handle projects from the conservation of major historic buildings and new buildings of architectural significance to masterplanning and transportation studies.

Ben Denton

A property development finance specialist. He is a shareholder and director of investment at First Base. Previous positions include Hillier Parker and KPMG where he advised on the feasibility and financing of major projects in the public and private sectors. Recent projects include the financing of 1,600 mixed tenure homes across five projects in London with English Partnerships, and the financing and delivery of the affordable housing at the Olympic Village, Stratford.

Miriam Fitzpatrick

An architect who has previously worked with Feilden Clegg Architects, Edward Cullinan and Nicholas Grimshaw in London and Diamond and Schmitt Architects in Canada. She has taught in the UK and Canada and has published widely as well as facilitating architectural workshops and presenting at conferences. She is a graduate of UCD School of Architecture and has a Masters in Social Science & City Design from London School of Economics.

Bernie Foulkes

An urban designer and landscape architect with professional experience in urban regeneration and master planning. He is partner of LDA Design, one of the UK’s leading urban design and landscape design practices.

Professor Derek Keene

Leverhulme Professor of Comparative Metropolitan History at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. He has published widely on the history of London and other European cities and their regions. Much of his work focuses on the interaction between people and the physical environment.

Alan Leibowitz

Alan Leibowitz is joint managing director of Dorrington Plc and sits on the board of its parent company, Hanover Acceptances Limited. Dorrington is a property investment and development company, active in both the commercial and residential sectors, mainly in London. Alan takes specific responsibility for Dorrington’s commercial property interests and for the company’s development programme. Alan is a former member of CABE’s design review committee and is chairman of SPACE (the leading provider of affordable studios for artists) and a trustee of the Architectural Association Foundation.

Graham Morrison

In 1983, in partnership with Bob Allies, Graham Morrison won the competition for a new public square at the Mound in Edinburgh, the project which led to the establishment of the practice Allies and Morrison in 1984. Their commissions include the new British Embassy in Dublin, an information services building for Goldsmiths College, a new public landscape at the Tate Gallery, restoration of the Royal Festival Hall, the new library and archive at Girton College and King’s Cross Central. Graham has been a member of the Royal Fine Art Commission (1989-99) a design review panellist (1999-2004) and is a member of English Heritage’s London Advisory Committee.

John Nicholls

Chief executive of the Leicester Regeneration Company, which defined a master plan for major physical change in central Leicester and is now well advanced in its delivery. Originally a planner, he has worked previously at director level in an urban development corporation, for English Partnerships, and for a regional development agency. Projects in progress in Leicester include a 60,000 sq m retail development, a 50,000 sq m business quarter, a science park and several thousand new homes.

Dickon Robinson CBE

An architect who, as development and planning director at the Peabody Trust, London’s longest established housing trust, has been responsible for leading a major new build housing and regeneration programme, pioneering exemplary architecture, off-site manufacturing and sustainability. Formerly a CABE commissioner and chair of CABE Space.

Sophia de Sousa

Sophia de Sousa is chief executive of the Glass-House Community Led Design and has led the transformation of this small architecture foundation to an independent national charity in the field of community participation in the design process. Although she has a degree in architectural history, Sophia’s interest has been the relationship between architecture and people and how to open up the processes behind architecture and urban design accessible to non-architects. Sophia worked for a number of years in Italy as a teacher trainer and as a consultant to universities and has supported several major museums in Tuscany. In Italy, Sophia was co-founder and president of a small voluntary organisation that celebrated increasing cultural diversity in Florence. She returned to the UK full-time in 2003.

Martin Stockley

Martin Stockley’s practice of consulting engineers work all over the UK on civil, structural, infrastructure and movement engineering. His work on movement in the public realm stems from normal human behaviour rather than geometry. He views much of his work on highways as land reclamation. Masterplanning and framework planning includes Manchester City Centre masterplan, New Islington Millennium Community (Manchester), Roath Basin (Cardiff), Middlehaven (Middlesbrough) Holbeck (Leeds) , Piccadilly Basin (Manchester) and Nottingham Eastside. Martin’s experience of listed buildings includes the conversion of Courages Anchor Brewhouse (by Tower Bridge), remodelling of the public realm at Liverpool Lime Street, the repair and conversion of Park Hill (Sheffield) and the conversion and reuse of the oldest surviving warehouse in Manchester, where the practice has its studio.

Peter Studdert

Peter Studdert is an architect and town planner, currently director of joint planning for Cambridge’s growth areas, based at South Cambridgeshire District Council. He was formerly director of planning at Cambridge City Council. He has wide experience of urban design and planning in historic towns, and in designing new communities. He is a member of English Heritage’s Advisory Committee and of the Academy of Urbanism.

Chris Twinn

Chris Twinn BSc (Hons) CEng MEI MCIBSE FRSA is a Director of the Building Engineering Sustainability Group in Arup, originally joining the multidisciplinary Arup Associates in 1986. With a foundation in architectural engineering, and background in both building services and building physics, he has a particular interest in integrating building fabric and systems to create appropriate indoor and outdoor environments with the minimum impact on the wider environment. Chris now specialises in the design and delivery of projects where sustainability, with its resource use, social and financial aspects, is a key issue. Recent projects include Kingspan Lighthouse (CSH6*), Portcullis House, Westminster and Beddington Zero Energy Development, and Jersey Archive Centre, together with numerous masterplanning studies including Kings Cross Central, Dongtan Shanghai, Pennbury Ecotown, areas of Thames Gateway and many community scaled initiatives. Current activities include a series of carbon neutral / ultra-low resource projects together with strategic contributions to the legislative framework and the planning system, and lectures, articles, research and technical publications.

Paul Walshe

Paul Walshe is a landscape architect and architect. He has combined private practice, establishing Walshe Associates in 1982, with the role of national heritage advisor to the Countryside Agency, landscape advisor to the National Heritage Memorial Fund and Policy Adviser to the Heritage Lottery Fund. He is a member of the English Heritage Advisory Committee and of English Heritage’s Historic Parks and Gardens Panel.

Chris Wilkinson OBE

An architect and principal of Wilkinson Eyre Architects, designers of Gateshead Millennium Bridge and RIBA Stirling Prize winners for two consecutive years. He is currently teaching at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and has published works on ‘Supersheds’ and the work of his practice. He is an English Heritage commissioner.

Charles Wilson

An architect and town planner who has practised in both the private and public sectors, latterly as a director with Lancaster City Council. He is currently a member of English Heritage’s Advisory Committee, a CABE regional representative and enabler, and a member of the Church Commission’s Redundant Churches Committee.

Clare Wright MBE

Clare is an architect with over 30 years' experience. She studied at Glasgow’s Mackintosh School of Architecture. She has been an awards assessor for both the RIBA and the Civic Trust, and is a working party member on DCLG’s Part M Provision for the Disabled, Part B Fire Safety and the Sustainability and Quality Group. Clare co-founded Wright and Wright Architects, whose project portfolio includes many cultural, educational and housing projects, often in listed buildings. Clients include Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal College of Art, and in 2003 the practice won the RIBA Award for the Women’s Library in London's East End.