Growing up in an urban area that suffered unemployment and decline of industry, yet having discovered nature thriving on abandoned urban fringe land, I have always wished to improve community resilience through better quality housing surrounded by accessible and biodiverse greenspaces.

I am an ecologist with particular experience in restoration and regeneration. With a degree in Ecological Science (Edinburgh, 1983), I have worked in forestry and landscape architectural practices and in a local authority. All these arenas allowed me to input to design and take charge of implementation of green infrastructure schemes in urban fringe landscapes.

I am privileged to have spent my working life alongside landscape architects and planners. A multi-disciplinary approach was at the heart of the idea of founding TEP in 1997 as an independent environmental consultancy, committed to sustainable development, personal development and environmental excellence. As a director of TEP which has grown to support 140 planners, designers and environmentalists, I work with many developers, Local Planning Authorities and Homes England to harness the finance and energy that arises from (re)development towards improved local environments.