Katie is a Director at RCA Regeneration Limited and brings with her experience from 12 years in Local Government and 6 years in the Private Sector, giving her strong commercial awareness in relation to land, planning and implementation activities. Katie particularly enjoys the project-management and problem-solving aspects of large and complex schemes
Katie has worked for Councils in Berkshire and the West Midlands across the Housing Needs and Planning/Development Management Teams and has dealt with planning and enforcement cases of broad sizes and types and has experience in presenting to the Planning Committee and representing the Council in appeals of all formats, including presenting evidence at Hearings and Public Inquiry.
Katie has also worked in the private sector in both Strategic Land and Client-side Housebuilding and has experience in managing the planning activities for both short and long term land from initial site identification and acquisition through promotion and on to detailed consent and implementation. She also has experience negotiating option and promotion agreements, sale-purchase agreements and collaboration agreements.
Outside of work, Katie has also volunteered her time to her local Parish Council to support the Neighbourhood Plan process. She also enjoys countryside walks, visits to heritage properties and cuddling cats.
Experience
I have 18 years experience across the public and private sectors in housing, planning and land and hold an undergraduate LLB (Hons) degree and an MSc in Development Planning.
My first role at Reading Borough Council was as Housing Allocations Officer. This involved maintaining the Housing Register and allocating affordable housing and gave me an interest in how affordable housing was procured. I then moved to the Planning Enforcement Team and was involved in investigating alleged breaches in planning control and either negotiating a remedy or taking formal action where required, including drafting and services notices and issuing legal instructions. Whilst in the post I was offered the opportunity to study for a Masters Degree alongside my work. Part-way through my studies I moved to the Development Management Team as a Planner, and then upon graduation, I was promoted to Senior Planner. I worked across Reading Borough on a range of sizes and types of applications and enforcement cases, including presenting to Planning Committee and writing appeal statements.
After over 7 years’ experience at Reading Borough Council, I joined Bracknell Forest Borough Council as I was keen to learn more about planning in the Green Belt. Firstly I worked as Senior Planning Officer in the Strategic Sites Delivery Team and initially dealt with complex and major developments and supported the Principal Planning Officers on very large-scale applications such as the regeneration of the Town Centre and the redevelopment of Broadmoor Hospital. I was promoted to Principal Planning Officer in the Development Management Team where I continued a large and
varied case-load as well as assisting in team and staff management. My responsibilities included presenting to Planning Committee and representing the Council at appeals of all types, including presenting evidence at Hearings and Inquiries.
I then joined Walsall Metropolitan Borough Council as Principal Planning Officer. It gave me the opportunity to learn more about the regeneration of brownfield sites and the viability of these projects. I worked predominantly in the southern part of the Borough, including Walsall Town Centre. I managed a caseload of complex, significant and major applications of all types and played a key role in the delivery of major development and redevelopment projects, including being part of the Development Team to provide support to landowners and developers from a very early stage.
In 2016 I joined Lioncourt Strategic Land (the strategic land arm of Lioncourt Homes) as Senior Planner. My principal role was the promotion of sites in our land portfolio through the planning process, including appointment and management of consultant teams and budget monitoring. This included strategic land promotion of large scale sites through the development plan process, planning application preparation and the delivery of planning permissions. I was also involved in new site searches/assessments, preparation and presentation of bids/proposals, land assembly and contract negotiations, for both land acquisition and sales. After almost 2 years in this role I was offered the opportunity to move to the parent company, Lioncourt Homes, as the planning function of the housebuilding activities was being brought in-house. I managed the planning team and oversaw the planning activities in relation to short term land, from acquisition through to detailed consent and implementation. After a year, my role was broadened to Planning and Land Acquisition Manager as I had become heavily involved in contract negotiation and the land acquisition process.
Alongside my work at Lioncourt Homes, I also volunteered (as a resident) to the Warndon Parish Council Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group and contributed to the creation of the emerging Neighbourhood Plan.
I have now joined RCA Regeneration to utilise my wealth of experience across a varied caseload. As a result of my broad and varied experience, I have strong commercial awareness in relation to land, planning and implementation activities and I particularly enjoy getting stuck into project management, problem-solving and negotiation.