Andrew is Director of Education & Profession at the RTPI, leading its professional accreditation, professional standards, policy and research, CPD, international networks and diversity and inclusion functions.  An urban designer and Chartered Town Planner, he worked at the then Department for Communities & Local Government heading up first the local plans policy team, and then the appeals policy team, before being seconded to The Prince’s Foundation as neighbourhood planning advisor to support the roll-out of the 2011 Localism Act.  Prior to national government, he held positions at a number of local authorities in London in conservation, urban design and regeneration.  He grew up in Warwickshire.

Ben Everitt was elected the Conservative MP for Milton Keynes North in the 2019 general election, Ben was previously a councillor in Aylesbury Vale District Council/ Buckinghamshire Council from 2015 to 2021. He is chairman of the following All-Party Parliamentary Groups: - Housing Market & Housing Delivery. - Connected and Automated Mobility (his constituency is home to numerous automated mobility trials including driverless cars). - Business in a Pandemic (Covid) World. Prior to being elected to Parliament he worked as a management consultant for Deloitte from 2009 to 2012. He was later head of strategy for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales from 2012 to 2020. Ben is married with three children. He enjoys Rugby and often goes on retreats with the Army reserves.

Clive Betts began his political career in 1973 and in 1976 was elected as a member of Sheffield City Council.  He became Leader of the Council in 1987, having served on the Housing and Finance committees for several years.  He remained on the Council until his election as Labour Member of Parliament for Sheffield Attercliffe from 1992 until 2010. From 2010 he was the Labour MP for the renamed Sheffield South East constituency and was re-elected in May 2015 and June 2017.

Clive was appointed a Government Whip in 1997 and held the post until 2001. In June 2010 he was elected as Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee(Formally the Department for Communities and Local Government Select Committee) and has been re-elected following each General Election.

Clive has been a key member on several Select Committees (Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Department for Communities and Local Government.)  His political interests include economic policy, local and regional government and housing.  He was chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Arms Length Management Organisations, the All Party Football Group and was also chair of the Netherlands Group in Parliament and Joint Chair of the Somali and Somaliland APPG.

David Smith has been Economics Editor of The Sunday Times since 1989, where he writes a weekly column. He is also chief leader-writer, an assistant editor and policy adviser. He also writes columns for The Times, Tax Journal and other publications. He speaks and broadcasts regularly to a wide variety of audiences.  Prior to joining The Sunday Times, he worked for The Times, Financial Weekly, Now! Magazine, the Henley Centre for Forecasting and Lloyds Bank.

David Smith is the author of several books, including The Rise and Fall of Monetarism; Mrs Thatcher’s Economics; North and South; From Boom to Bust; UK Current Economic Policy; Eurofutures; Will Europe Work?; Free Lunch: Easily Digestible Economics; The Dragon & the Elephant: China, India and the New World Order; The Age of Instability: The Global Financial Crisis and What Comes Next, and – in 2015 – Something Will Turn Up; Britain’s Eonomy Past, Present and Future. He has his own website www.economicsuk.com. He was born and brought up in the West Midlands and studied at the Universities of Wales, Oxford and London. He is a visiting professor at both Cardiff University and Nottingham University, and has lectured at Nottingham’s Malaysia and Ningbo (China) campuses. He has won a number of awards, including the Harold Wincott Senior Financial Journalist of the Year Award, the 2013 Economics Commentator of the Year Award and the 2014 Business Journalist of the Year Award in the London Press Awards.

Emily is a Director in the Residential Research team in Savills. She joined the department in 2012, and now manages the development thought leadership program, primarily focusing on sustainability, the housing development pipeline and planning policy. Her recent work has covered topics including the development of green premiums, the new homes market after the end of Help to Buy, and the increasing importance of biodiversity and environmental gain in residential development.

Joanna Averley took up the role of Chief Planner at MHCLG in September 2020.  She is a town planner with 30 years’ experience working across government, major projects and with local authorities. She has been involved in all aspect of planning research, policy, practice and project delivery.  Prior to this role she was at HS2 where she led on how the railway interfaces with its context with plan making and consenting processes.  Until taking up the role of Chief Planner she was a London Mayor’s Design Advocate and Chair of the London Borough of Wandsworth’s Design Review Panel. Joanna has worked on major regeneration and masterplanning projects from Manchester City Centre to the London Olympics. Joanna has held a number of senior roles  as Senior Manager for Growth and Development for Crossrail 2 at TfL, Deputy CEO and Director of Design and Planning Advice of CABE, CEO of Centre for Cities, CEO of LandAid and Director of Design for the Olympic Delivery Authority. Joanna has held a number of non-executive roles including Trustee of MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology).

Mike is a chartered town planner and MBA qualified manager with over 40 years’ experience in local government, most of that in London and 14 years at service head level and above. He is a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, formerly president of the Planning Officers Society and now chair of its Board. Mike works closely with government and across the sector to shape planning in England. In 2015 he left local government and set up his consultancy, Mike Kiely planning + regeneration, to specialise in assisting local authorities to perform better and be more effective. His extensive experience in successfully delivering major planning and regeneration projects means he can add value over and above the chief planning officer role, constructively challenging accepted thinking and proposing innovative solutions.

Rebecca Phillips has over 12 years’ experience as a Planning Inspector at the most senior level.  She has been the Professional Lead for Planning Appeals at The Planning Inspectorate for 4 years, responsible for providing professional support and advice as well as training and development for Inspector teams undertaking S78 appeals, including specialist case work. She has extensive experience of undertaking a variety of S78 and enforcement appeals as well as development plan and CIL examinations. She also led on developing the new PINs Operating Model enabling the use of virtual proceedings.

She is qualified in Town & Country Planning and Marketing and has a background in economic development, regeneration, development finance, strategic marketing management and policy development.

Previous roles include Planning Policy advisor at the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), business development consultant at Strategic Marketing Ltd as well as roles in economic development and regeneration at the Welsh Development Agency and Cardiff Bay Development Corporation.

She is the RTPI representative and Chair of the RTPI-Joint Distance Learning Consortium Board to oversee the delivery of planning education in accordance with RTPI standards, maintaining RTPI accreditation status and accrediting new courses.  She was previously Chair of the RTPI/Plymouth University Board and external examiner at Cardiff University Planning School.

She is the RTPI representative and Chair of the RTPI-Joint Distance Learning Consortium Board to oversee the delivery of planning education in accordance with RTPI standards, maintaining RTPI accreditation status and accrediting new courses.  She has just stepped down as the Chair of the RTPI-Plymouth University Board after 5 years in the role. She was previously external examiner at Cardiff University Planning School.

After a career in Local government , during which time he managed all front line services including an award winning Planning and community planning team , Steve became Chief Planner for the government in 2008. Stepping down in 2020 after 12 years Steve could reflect back on a period that saw the planning system transformed; from the NPPF , the planning guidance suite , to PD rights and the design agenda. He championed the profession and pressed for greater diversity. A former President of the Planning Officers Society and an active RTPI member during his Local Government time, he now has a varied portfolio of activities, supporting the charity MOBIE, Women in Planning and the University of Kent, as well as giving strategic advice and support to Town Legal, Cratus, hgh planning consultancy and Popolo housing.

Tony Juniper CBE is Chair of the official nature conservation agency Natural England. Before taking up this role in April 2019 he was the Executive Director for Advocacy and Campaigns at WWF-UK, a Fellow with the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and President of the Wildlife Trusts. Until January 2018 he was an independent sustainability and environment advisor, including as Special Advisor with The Prince of Wales's International Sustainability Unit.

Juniper speaks and writes widely on conservation and sustainability themes and is the author of many books, including the multi-award winning bestseller ‘What has Nature ever done for us?’ published in 2013. Tony began his career as an ornithologist, working with Birdlife International. From 1990 he worked at Friends of the Earth, initially leading the campaign for the tropical rainforests, and from 2003–2008 was the organisation's executive director. From 2000–2008 was Vice Chair of Friends of the Earth International.

He was the first recipient of the Charles and Miriam Rothschild medal (2009) and was awarded honorary Doctor of Science degrees from the Universities of Bristol and Plymouth (2013). The Ladybird guide to climate change, co-authored with HRH The Prince of Wales and Emily Shuckburgh, was published in January 2017. In 2017 he was appointed a Commander of the British Empire (CBE).

Zack is the top-rated junior planning barrister in the country (Planning Magazine Legal Surveys 2021 & 2022) and has been nominated for Planning and Land Use Junior of the Year in the Legal 500 Bar Awards 2022. He acts for a wide range of developers, including most of the UK’s leading housebuilders and land promoters, Central Government, and many local planning authorities. His practice focuses on housing, infrastructure, commercial development, and compulsory purchase work. He appears regularly in planning appeals, local plan examinations, and court hearings in the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. He is a member of Landmark Chambers, and writes about planning law and policy at planoraks.com.