People
DLA is wholly owned by an employee benefit trust.
Nick Freer
Partner at DLA since 2003, Nick brings a committed and commercially aware approach to the delivery of client and public authority objectives. His record is one of strong client relationships and facilitating implementation; as an experienced expert witness, he has a strong record of appeal success. His present accomplishments embrace the planning and delivery of major, large-scale housing and mixed use developments across the country – which include the new town of Cranbrook in Devon, a national exemplar of infrastructure-led delivery and the Swindon New Eastern Villages.
Julia Foster
With over 25 years of consultancy experience, Julia has engaged in a vast array of planning and masterplanning work. Still, she relishes the challenges that arise on a near daily basis and remains driven by the desire to create and reinvent places in a way that enlightens and lifts the heart. Julia has prepared a number of innovative development frameworks including award-winning strategies for the creation of a new town centre at Brierley Hill/Merry Hill and the transformation of the Renfrew Riverside in Glasgow. The recurring theme is complexity and scale: Julia’s focus now is on managing large-scale, mixed use projects with a focus upon regeneration and invention of commercial opportunity.
Heather Pugh
Heather has combined her extensive experience in planning and delivering large-scale development with her interest in geography, long term planning and placemaking to develop a specialism in spatial planning at the strategic scale. Heather takes a creative approach to consultancy commissions, finding new ways through the planning system to make sure projects are grounded in best practice. She uses her geographer’s background to shape locations for new growth; her analysis and narrative skills to prepare compelling planning strategies; and her practitioner’s experience to embed high quality development at the heart of sustainable places.
Joanne Cave
Joanne is a qualified planner and urban designer responsible for a varied portfolio of projects ranging from large-scale urban extensions, including the 4,000 dwelling expansion of Canterbury, to the production of strategies for complex regeneration challenges, such as the Bradford City Plan. Her focus is working closely with clients and co-consultants to deliver intelligent, creative and practical solutions for more sustainable and attractive places.
With over 25 years of professional practice, Jo is still motivated by the idea that new and necessary development can enhance rather than detract from the quality of life in our towns and cities.
Her combined skills allow Jo to focus on how, through the processes of planning, design and development, we can achieve better and more sustainable places, delivering great results for future users and for DLA’s clients.
Simon Collier
Simon is an urban designer and chartered landscape architect whose work encompasses conceptual thinking and visioning for the largest scale strategic projects, site master plans and development frameworks, through to the production of design codes and detailing for implementation. By approaching projects with an open mind and a lateral perspective, Simon articulates complex design challenges into development proposals which are creative, innovative, robust and deliverable.
Robert Purton
Robert fervently believes that everyone deserves the opportunity to have a decent place to live, work and enjoy and that positive planning can help deliver this for a better society. He specialises in providing both strategic and detailed advice to global investors, property companies and local authorities, advising on commercial, industrial, logistics, medical and residential schemes. His advice ranges from conception to submission through to negotiating legal agreements and implementation. His expertise also encompasses promoting schemes at appeal and where appropriate at High Court.
Andrew Wintersgill
Andrew very much shares the aspirations of his colleagues to create special places in which people want to live, work and enjoy leisure; and which deliver the objectives of DLA’s clients. The challenge of managing complex projects, including preparing planning applications for large-scale developments which require the coordination of work by sizeable teams, is something Andrew thrives on. He enjoys making the high-level case for a project through writing a Planning Statement or speaking at a Local Plan Examination just as much as he appreciates the opportunity to wrestle with the detail of draft chapters of an Environmental Statement or the minutiae of policies in an emerging Local Plan.
Stephen Haines
Since qualifying as a chartered architect and urban designer, Stephen has accumulated over 20 years of development experience gained through his time in private practice, local authority and consultancy. His work has spanned brownfield and greenfield development; from designing large-scale master plans for urban extensions and new settlements to developing ambitious and imaginative regeneration strategies for some of the UK’s major towns and cities. He feels privileged to be involved with projects being delivered on the ground to see the positive impacts these can have on people’s lives.
Simon Pugh
Simon’s fundamental motivation is to ‘deliver the vision’; not just to produce quality master plans and concepts, but to engage with stakeholders to ensure delivery of quality places for people. Most notably, Simon is heavily involved in strategic scale spatial masterplanning within the NIC Ox-MK-Cam Corridor, and several very large-scale Garden Community proposals for both public and private sectors.
Arwel Owen
At the heart of Arwel’s work is the belief that good geography translates into good places and that planning is about delivering the essential components of society. This includes logistics, large-scale mixed communities, urban regeneration and minerals. His experience includes promotion through all levels of plan making and coordinating multi-disciplinary teams, preparing applications (including for EIA development) and securing permission. Beyond planning permission, he advises clients on disposals and implementation and provides ongoing strategy advice.
Dr Darren Bell
Darren is experienced in promoting strategic scale development projects and in policy development for strategic growth. His approach involves combining strong communication, robust analysis and collaborative working to identify, promote and secure sustainable and deliverable developments. He played a leading role in securing a resolution to grant planning permission for 6,500 new homes at Waterbeach Barracks and Airfield, Cambridge and in preparing growth scenarios for Wokingham Borough Council as part of their Local Plan Review. His previous experience includes the Advisory Team for Large-scale Planning Applications (ATLAS), where he advised local authorities on strategic scale proposals. He was also a Visiting Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University for twelve years, was on the RTPI Membership Panel and acts as an RTPI APC Mentor.
David Lock
David Lock founded David Lock Associates in 1988, was Managing Director until 2008 and Chairman until 2013. From 1994 to 1997, David was Chief Planning Adviser (half time) to the Department of the Environment. He was also Chairman of the internationally renowned environmental education charity the Town and Country Planning Association for six years. David was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2007 for services to town and country planning. As a widely respected expert in planning in both greenfield and urban regeneration environments, he is frequently called upon to participate in Public Examinations.
Rob Coles
Rob has over 30 years’ experience as an Architect in the mixed use and residential sector and is still driven by a deep passion to find the very best design solution, be it masterplanning or design for living. He enjoys the challenge of placemaking, from the close study of site conditions to creating value for clients and strives to find sustainable solutions to create viable new communities, or unique interventions to revive existing settlements.