How It All Started

Although I've been professionally involved in area regeneration for 22 years (half my life !), my interest in development (and stopping it) started long before. Even as a very young child, I was aware that house-building, in the wrong place, could spoil the environment : one of my first conscious thoughts was along these lines, and I later became interested in wildlife conservation.

I spent my youth in rural North Wales, but made frequent visits to Merseyside. These, and a visit to the east coast of the United States when I was 16, brought an expanding awareness of the challenges of major urbanisation. In 1979 I wrote an essay for an Observer/Whitbread competition on the importance of small and medium-sized enterprise for a rural area (using a local case study). To my surprise, I won first prize in my region. and made a visit to London in the following year to have lunch with a government minister.

I then did a degree in English Language and Literature at Hertford College, University of Oxford, before travelling, mainly around the east coast of Australia, between 1984-5. This revived my interest in environment and development issues. Back in the UK, I moved to London - my home for the next 16 years or so - and found my "vocation". In 1989, I achieved an MSc in Urban and Regional Planning Studies Birkbeck College, University of London. The rest, as they say, is history....