Stephen Hill Email & Phone Number

United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa And Bulgaria

Strategic advice on project design and practical implementation of spatial planning, development and regeneration projects and programmes.This practice was originally established, as Capital Action in 1988, (see below) with explicit moral objectives and public interest purposes to remedy social, economic and environmental injustices by exploiting traditional forms of land ownership, finance and the development and planning process to create opportunities for social investment, particularly the endowment of neighbourhood based organisations with land and other assets that could sustain ongoing urban change and renewal, and to create and maintain adequate supplies of affordable housing for lower income households. Over time, this has become increasingly mainstream practice in the promotion of sustainable development and sustainable communities. Projects have covered a wide range of clients, including community groups, councils, housebuilders, housing association and Government Departments, focusing on the creative use of public and private sector resources and systems of land ownership and management to optimise the use of land by linking development projects to social, educational, employment and health needs of urban populations. I have developed new models of development, planning and sustainability option appraisal, as well new approaches to community engagement, including the training of local people and professionals to be “barefoot urban designers” and “placemakers”, in large scale neighbourhood renewal programmes, and using co-production as a tool for working with communities and future residents of new housing projects. I have written extensively on the value of adopting co-production as the foundation of ethical practice in development.

The Edge is a campaigning built and natural environment think tank and network. It is multi-disciplinary in a landscape remarkable for its abundance of single-discipline institutions.Who we are - We have been described as a virtual institution. Started as a means of creating a shared space between the architectural and engineering institutions, the Edge was never going to fulfil this mission if it turned itself into yet another institution and squeezed into any space that is left. Instead we have existed as a voluntary group in temporary space with no staff and lots of stakeholders.What we’re about - The Edge Debate is a process of thinking about how the built and natural environment could be better.How we work - We work through debate. It is not the only way we work but it is the main way and suits the amount of sustained voluntary resource we are able to call upon.Amongst many initiatives, we are currently working with the RICS and many other stakeholders to shape thinking about what the Government's long awaited Land Use Framework should aim to achieve, and, perhaps more importantly, help design the ways in which it becomes a practical tool for enabling action at national, regional, local and hyper-local level.

United Kingdom

Awarded for the first time in the UK, as part of the RICS’ Social Impact Awards 2020: a refocussing of its traditional awards scheme to recognise and celebrate the direct positive social and environmental impact of the surveying profession on society. The award was judged on the recipient’s personal human, social and environmental impact, as well as the collaboration and innovation involved.

London

The purpose of the International Center for Community Land Trusts (previously Center for Community Land Trust Innovation) is to further the global development of CLTs, expanding from its core areas in North America and Europe to, currently, South America, Sub-Saharan and South Africa, the Indian sub-continent, South East Asia and Australasia. It supports the development of new CLTs and the training of CLT practitioners. The Center maintains and curates historical materials; conducts and disseminates academic and non-academic research; produces and publishes case studies, directories, guides, and other educational materials; and provides training, referral, and technical assistance services. The Center publishes books and monographs under its trademarked imprint: Terra Nostra Press. https://cltweb.org/terra-nostra-press/The Center’s larger, aspirational goal is to foster the creation of more just societies across the globe. For the purposes of the Center’s work, justice has a three-fold requirement: systemic racism and other social and economic barriers to inclusion must be dismantled; equitable access to land, housing, and land-based resources must be secured; and any hard-won gains in inclusion and equity must be sustained over time.What lies at the heart of the Center’s commitment to community-led development on community-owned land is a conviction that CLTs can be (and should be) effectively used to achieve all three. This malleable, versatile strategy, with its many variations and applications, is capable of moving the places in which we live a bit closer toward justice – and making justice last.

United States

Following a short research trip in early October to Chicago to visit the Chicago City Council's Community Land Trust, for the forthcoming 2nd edition of my Churchill Fellowship report 'Property, Justice and Reason - Reconnecting the Citizen and the State through CLTs and land reform', (see also entry below) I attended the USA's national community housing conference in Oakland, CA, and got a bit of a surprise with this award. Named after John Davis, it was first awarded to him in 2011 at the National CLT Network Conference in Burlington, VT to recognise his role in the growth of the CLT movement and the development of a rigorous and lively narrative for the purpose of CLTs in the USA and internationally. The award is made occasionally. If you view the film, there comes a moment of some embarrassment connected with Dumbledore and wizard hats. Potteresque jokes and other embarrassing comments risk invoking the Ear Shrivelling Spell...which I have been practising on some fellow surveyors and planners in 'In Memoriam - Common Sense'The good people at the International Center for Community Land Trusts interviewed me in 2023 about how I became involved in the world of CLTs. You can read it here https://cltweb.org/terra-nostra-press/tapestry/

Usa & Canada

Completed travel programme to cities in USA and Canada in April and May 2014 to meet community organisers and politicians working in both collaborative and hostile situations over housing and neighbourhood revitalisation. The research explored the relationship between the citizen and the State in these contexts and to create better narratives for communities and politicians to work together more effectively in the UK. The research was published in April 2015, containing three recommendations: how to encourage a wider public debate about the role of land in serving the common good, how to define and strengthen the public interest role of professionals and their institutions, and how to give the demand side of housing markets an effective voice in policymaking. More detail and a download link to the report is contained in various blog posts on 'futureplanning-building just cities'; link below.An introduction to aspects of my report, focussing on citizen action to counteract the distortion of local land markets and its damaging social, economic and environmental consequences, by global capital, appeared in the RICS Land Journal December 2015 (pp17-19). It's a lot about community land trusts as an instrument of land reform, and a driver of democratic renewal.

United Kingdom

The specialist expert role offers focussed skills, in-depth knowledge and expertise, ranging from detailed technical knowledge to lived experience to research, combined with the ability to give advice and guidance to clients and project teams in both, one-to-one and more public settings. Experts will also strengthen the Design Council’s approach and thought leadership through sharing and promoting their particular areas of knowledge and expertise. As members of a community of practice, they will also develop, co-create and partner on new projects, programmes and business opportunities with Design Council.My area of expertise in this role was focussed on ‘project design’, ensuring projects actually happen with the means for achieving desired design, community empowerment, wellbeing and placemaking ambitions. My past involvement in public policymaking on community-led and mainstream housing is grounded in the hands-on practicalities of co-producing developments like Marmalade Lane in Cambridge through action-learning and effective procurement of design skills, construction and project delivery partners.The Specialist Expert role was developed out of the earlier CABE Enabling concept. Recruited by CABE in 2009, I was a member of CABE's Planning Advisory Committee, and Sustainable Cities Advisory Group, and worked on assignments covering planning and design quality training for staff at the Homes & Communities Agency, community engagement, self build and community led housing, Eco-Towns, review of the design quality assessments used for Kickstart Rounds 1 & 2, healthy cities, practical implementation of public policy, as well as location specific interventions in Leeds, Grimsby, Margate, Ashford and Cambridge.

Uk

I joined the board of the UK Cohousing Network in 2012 to enable collaboration between it and the National CLT Network. I ended up being its chair from 2015 to Feb 2020, and supported the chief officers of both organisations in taking a shared leadership role in responding to the unexpected announcement of the Community Housing Fund in the Spring Budget 2016, and facilitating a process of co-designing a policy and programme roll out by the government department and community housing sectors: a necessary innovation at a moment when the civil servants responsible for the budget had no prior warning of the Chancellor's announcement and no knowledge and relevant experience in the department. UKCN is the national promotional body for independent groups of residents wishing to provide their own group housing solutions based on cooperative and sustainable lifestyles.

London, United Kingdom

The national body supporting the growth and development of community land trusts, providing genuinely and permanently affordable homes in rural and urban areas across England and Wales.www.communitylandtrusts.org.ukAlthough I joined the board formally as a trustee in 2012, I had been involved in the establishment of earlier informal arrangements to grow a national network of CLTs, from 2001 onwards, and then acting as the formal Network's technical adviser from 2007.

'Placing the Sustainable Development Goals at the heart of everything we do' is the core message of the work of the two commissions, which were set up in early 2018 by the RIBA Council. Working closely together, the commissions are focussed on how the RIBA and its members can develop a truly global perspective to support the realisation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030, particularly #11 Sustainable Development & Communities - Mission "Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable" with 'an equal right for all to affordable high quality places to live'.

England

The Task Force is supported by the Nationwide Foundation and DCLG, and will support local authorities meeting their statutory obligations in maintaining Right to Build Registers and ensuring sufficient land supply for custom builders in their areas. It will also recruit and manage a panel of experts to advise councils and potential custom builders, both individuals and groups.

Cambridge, England, United Kingdom

An independent consultancy spun out of the Cambridge School of Architecture, in 1987, CAR played a significant role in shaping the quality and locations for new development in the Cambridge Growth Area, and providing advice for the construction industry, design professions and policy-makers. As an associate, I acted as the lead for the project delivery design for an enabled self-build project commissioned by Cambridge City Council, now well known as the Marmalade Lane cohousing project in Orchard Park, an early urban extension to the north of the city.

London, United Kingdom

Representing the RICS with other housing industry representative bodies to consult with government on measures to increase housing supply and reform housing policy, following the Great Financial Crash, and subsequently I was also the RICS's Representative on CLG Housing Policy Sounding Board 2010 - 2016, and Observer on the board of the Housing Forum 2012-2018.

Board Member, Planning & Development Professional Group BoardMember, EU Sustainability Taskforce, Planning Policy Panel, and Member/Chair of Steering Groups on ‘Valuation of land for affordable housing’, and the valuation and disposal of local authority assets, placemaking and value, land value capture and land value taxation; and adviser to Institutional Investors' in Infrastructure Panel.

Board Member, Building Research Establishment Sustainability Board to 2009Chair, Expert Group on BREEAM for Communities to 2010Member of BRE Standing Panel for Peer Review to 2012

London, United Kingdom

Established to assist the Government in developing appropriate sources of support and advice to communities taking advantage of the opportunities provided in the Localism Bill 2009/10, in relation to land, planning, development and asset management; and reflecting to the profession what services it will be called on to provide.

London, United Kingdom

Established to promote greater levels of activity in the self-provided housing sector i.e. Community Land Trusts, cooperatives and cohousing. Chair of sub-group concerned with strategic planning, land supply and procurement options, and responsible for inclusion of new requirements to collect demand data on people who want to build their own home in the National Planning Policy Framework.

London, United Kingdom

Established the Sustainable Developments consulting team, to advise landowner and developer clients how to integrate the principles of sustainable development in their plans for the development of their land, or in delivery through public-private partnerships, and to assist professional teams in using master planning and strategic urban design to embed sustainable development in their practice.

London & Warrington

Responsible for the Millennium Communities programme of seven exemplar sustainable community projects, initiated by the Deputy Prime Minister in 1997. The programme had twin objectives: to challenge the house building industry to build more efficiently, at a lower cost and to higher standards of energy efficiency, urban and house type design; and to encourage house buyers and tenants to buy into or adopt more sustainable lifestyles. Taken on in July 2004 to re-launch the programme for the Delivering Sustainable Communities Summit in January 2005, the programme then took on a broader profile for testing many aspects of the Sustainable Communities Plan, the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal, and the ongoing reforms of local government and the planning system. This involved setting up an evaluation framework and best practice network to promote action learning amongst the public and private sector delivery partners and to feedback real time experience into the improvement of delivery, and practical policymaking by Government departments. I chaired an inter-Government Agency panel, to develop a National Standards Framework to integrate the standards and award criteria used by EP, CABE, and the Housing Corporation for sustainable buildings and places, and to relate the framework to the [then] forthcoming Code for Sustainable Buildings, and guidance on Urban Design Codes.

London Area, United Kingdom

Neighbourhood Renewal Advisers were recruited by the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit initially to assist the community led organisations set up to manage the financial resources available to them, approx. £50m over 10 years, through the New Deal for Communities programme. NRAs were recruited as individuals with the particular skills required for the programme, not as a member of a larger consultancy or company. Their brief was later widened to advise councils and other organisations affected by the government's reforms arising from its National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal. I covered NDC areas in London, Hull, Brighton, Plymouth and Bristol, as well as carrying out a half-way stage national review of NDC succession plans based on the use of community owned property assets as spaces for ongoing activities and generating income.

London, United Kingdom

Independent advisory panel on the preparation of White Paper and introduction of principles of New Localism and 'Double Devolution'. As one of the members tasked with representing what the second stage of double devolution might look like, this was a significant failure, to which I attribute at least some causality for the outcome of the Brexit Referendum and the subsequent decay of good democratic practice https://stephenhillfutureplanning.blogspot.com/2016/07/ and https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/feb/17/a-crushing-contempt-for-communities-that-stands-in-the-way-of-local-control

London

Involved mainly in large neighbourhood scale urban regeneration projects promoted by local authorities with local community organisations, housing associations and developers, structuring the relationships between the partners and between the partners and government. Consequently involved in the development of public policy, and reforms in planning, community engagement andthe funding and governance of regeneration.

London, United Kingdom

One of 18 cross-departmental and cross-sectoral Policy Action Teams, contributing to the National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal

London, United Kingdom

Review of options by the LGA and the government's Chief Planner for the reform for local planning, and introduction of principles of spatial planning; later integral to the legislative reforms to planning in 2004.Following the work of the Group, I worked on a task and finish group set up by the RTPI and Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in 2002 to scope the planning skills required to be developed for the model of spatial planning proposed by the LGA and being incorporated in the ODPM's work on the planning reforms that would underpin the 2004 Planning & Compulsory Purchase Act.

London Area, United Kingdom

2018 - 2020: Member, MHCLG Community Housing Fund Advisory Board2016 - 2018: Commissioner, Cooperative Councils’ Innovation Network -Local Authority Guide on Supporting Community Led Housing 2012 - 2018: Board Member, Housing Forum2012 - 2018: Trustee, Building Exploratory 2011 - 2013: Founding Trustee, Newborns Vietnam2010 - 2013: Board Member, Pro Housing Alliance 2006 - 2007: Member, External Review Panel for English Partnerships’ ‘Urban Design Compendium 2’2006 - 2007: Member, Reference Group, CLG/Quirk Review on Asset Transfer to Community Bodies2005 - 2010: Board Member, Hyde Plus & Trustee, Hyde Charitable Trust 2005 - 2009: Member, CLG/RTPI Sounding Board and Steering Group for CLG ‘Planning Together’ guidance 2003 - 2010: Faculty Fellow, Brighton University Health & Social Policy Centre2002 - 2009: Member, ROOM at RTPI Community Planning Network Board 2001 - 2003: Non-Executive Director, SPACE Studios2000 - 2004: Council Member, ROOM National Council for Planning and Housing1998 : Member, Hackney Building Exploratory (Emergency Rescue Committee)1996 - 1998: Member, London Planning Advisory Committee/London Pride Affordable Housing Panel 1995 - 1997: Member, London Health Partnership Advisory Board, at the King’s Fund1996 - 1999: Trustee, South African Housing and Education Project1994 - 2004: Member, London ProHelp (Business in the Community Professional Firms Group) 1993 - 2003: Chair, Universities of Sussex/Brighton Research Programme ‘Cost Effectiveness of Housing Investment (for social policy outcomes)’1993 - 1996: Board Member, Tabard Gardens Tenant Management Coop, Southwark1991 - 1998: Member of Council, Housing Centre Trust1991 - 1993: Member, UK Foreign Office ‘Know How Fund' Housing Team to Bulgaria1990 - 1992: Member, Homelessness Working Party, The Prince's Trust1984 - 1996: Board Member, Look Ahead Housing and Care Ltd 1978 - 1984: Committee Member, Hornsey Housing Trust

London, United Kingdom

Establishment of development function in historic housing trust, and new areas of development in Kent, Sussex and East London.

London, United Kingdom

Setting up first formal clientside operation for the Housing Department, following 1974 local government reforms on housing functions. Managing council housebuilding programme upto 1000 homes pa, pioneering design and build forms of contract, and tenant involvement in design and management of new homes, as part of Tenant Management Cooperative programme .

London Area, United Kingdom