Chris has been delivering challenging client briefs across Oxford, the South East and Scotland for more than 20 years.

This leading strategic planner knows that truly effective planning focuses on delivery rather than purely securing planning permission. By crafting the best briefs and telling the best stories, Chris is driven by client needs not the statutory planning process.

Delivering challenging complex projects of their age, in a congested medieval city like Oxford, often takes a bold approach as well as innovative planning and consultation strategies, looking across the process and horizon scanning and anticipating challenges not merely firefighting.  

Chris has a strong track record in helping clients strategically plan their physical estate and deliver key projects. He is adept at developing and managing multi-disciplinary project teams and providing advice on all aspects of planning legislation and process.  

This includes the higher education and sport sectors, working on behalf of organisations such as the University of Oxford and its Colleges, MCC at Lord’s and the RFU at Twickenham; Chris also has experience in the planning and delivery of major new mixed-use communities around the UK, including three sister new towns in the north east of Scotland.  

As Trustee and Vice Chair of Letchworth Heritage Foundation - the derivative of Ebeneezer Howard’s original First Garden City Ltd development company - Chris is actively involved in the expansion of the Garden City, which will see 900 new homes brought forward over the next decade.   

Chris is a former Director of Turnberry Planning, before it was acquired by Bidwells in early 2022.  

  • Trustee and Vice Chair of Letchworth Heritage Foundation 
  • Member of the Worshipful Company of Constructors 

Experience

01

Planning

Develop winning planning strategies that deliver successful projects
02

Planning Consultancy

Comprehensive planning strategy and submission advice - tailored to your site and your objectives.

Our insights

Image of robert-bye-4hcpIbqQM8c-unsplash Report 2024

Two quotes, half a century and a continent apart, explain why housebuilding has declined to 145,000 per year, less than half of the Government’s objective of 300,000 p.a.

Planning Reform and Productivity

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Image of Productivity Brain Landscape Report 2024

In Bidwells’ latest groundbreaking report, The Productivity Engine, we uncover the fundamental role that space plays in understanding - and solving - the UK’s productivity problems.

The Productivity Engine

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16. Energy and infrastructurejpg Insights 12.09.21

As a result of net-zero legislation (including the Carbon Budget Order 2021) and the ongoing climate crisis, there is an ongoing systemic shift towards low-carbon and renewable energy for homes and businesses.

Planning authorities need to handle waste and minerals correctly

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Image of Oxs spring Insights 17.05.23

Oxfordshire Local Plan Watch - Spring 2023

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Image of Ox - Autumn Insights 01.11.23

Oxfordshire Local Plan Watch - Autumn 2023

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Image of Oxs spring Insights 16.04.24

We are seeing significant activity across Oxfordshire with all five local authorities having recently published or due to shortly publish draft Local Plans for consultation.

Oxfordshire Local Plan Watch - Spring 2024

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CSP
Project

Exeter College, University of Oxford

The fourth oldest college at the University of Oxford has been constrained by its small site in the city centre and was searching for a new quadrangle. 

Exeter - Ruskin 2
Project

Gradel Quadrangles

The comprehensive redevelopment of the College’s Savile Road site saw proposals for an innovative curved quad building that shapes three south facing quads.

New College - East Quad
Project

Lord’s Cricket Ground

Lord’s Cricket Ground is the Home of Cricket and an iconic venue famous the world over, but the Marylebone Cricket Club needed to invest in its floodlighting system to keep pace with a fast-changing game.

Cricket 1
Project

Radcliffe Observatory Quarter

Described as Oxford’s ‘most ambitious project since the early twentieth century’ this feat of modern master planning brought radical change to the heart of the city.

Radcliffe Observatory Quarter - shutterstock
Project

Balliol College, University of Oxford

Once the medieval suburb of Holywell, the site is now located in the City and University Conservation Area. It became one of Central Oxford’s largest redevelopments – which needed a team to deliver practical and proactive advice on a site at the crossroads of historical Oxford.

balliol-masters-field 7

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