Jacqueline believes that well designed sports facilities and physical activity environments hold the key to encouraging people to become more active, thus enhancing personal and community health and wellbeing.

During her career as a chartered town planner specialising in sport she has visited and assessed hundreds of open space and sports facility sites. She has worked with local clubs and community groups, national governing bodies of sport, Sport England and local authority planning and leisure departments across the country to prepare, implement and monitor strategies, design guides, development briefs and needs assessments. She places great emphasis on engaging and consulting with local communities and stakeholders – particularly those who are traditionally less active.

She has contributed to the development of national and local planning policy and guidance and was selected as a ‘Woman of Influence’ by the RTPI’s ‘The Planner’ magazine in 2021 for her work in carrying out sports planning and strategy development through the Covid-19 pandemic.

Jacqueline is Founder and Co-Director of belap (Bennett Leisure and Planning Ltd), one of the UK’s first specialist sports planning consultancies. Her company has been selected to provide Assessment of Need services via the Sport England Active Environments Framework.