Regional Management Board

David is currently a visiting lecturer for the MSc Sustainable Planning course at the University of Hertfordshire, as well as serving on the Committee of a RSL and a Trustee for a national cancer charity.

Previously, he was Executive Director for Stewardship & Development at Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, the community benefit society that owns the freehold of the Letchworth Garden City Estate, reinvesting surplus from its main property portfolio back into the community through its charitable commitments, where he was responsible for the regeneration of Letchworth Town Centre, the Foundation’s housing, environmental and sustainability strategies and the first expansion of Letchworth since the 1980s.  This is the successor organisation to Ebenezer Howard’s First Garden City Ltd, which developed Letchworth in the early 1900s.  

He has worked in planning for 35 years, in both the public and private sectors, including within Planning Departments at Broxbourne (whilst studying on a part-time basis at South Bank University), Welwyn Hatfield and South Cambridgeshire District Councils. He was Planning Manager at Linden Homes (Chiltern) and an Associate Director of Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners before running his practice for five years.

David is a regular speaker on garden cities in the UK and internationally.  He has worked on various development schemes, including town centre regeneration, urban expansions, commercial development and many housing developments.  

He was previously Chair of the Regional Committee in 2022 and has been head judge for the annual regional awards since 2022.

He is an advocate for a wider understanding of Neuroendocrine Cancer as well as improved diagnosis and patient support.  He has been treated for this form of cancer since 2022.

John Mason is a planning consultant with Carter Jonas, based in their Cambridge Office. After studying at the Universities of Cambridge and Vienna, he joined the company as a graduate planner and got his RTPI accreditation in 2018. He now works on various public and private sector projects across East Anglia and is also active in Carter Jonas’ graduate training programme and its Diversity and Inclusion committee. John originally hails from the Midlands but has lived, worked and studied in the East of England region for the last ten years. Outside of work, John enjoys visiting housing estates around the world and regularly takes trips to visit family in India.

John is a barrister, specialising in planning and property, having qualified initially as a town planner . He studied at Durham and Liverpool Universities and worked for City, County and Borough Authorities on both development plans and development management before joining the Bar. He attended the Inns of Court School of Law and trained in London Chambers. He practised for many years in London before joining Trinity Chambers , Chelmsford .

He has undertaken a wide variety of planning and related cases for planning authorities, parish councils, residents' groups,  trading firms ,  universities , schools , churches and  individuals.  Much of his work is in the East of England and London. Recently it has included  

some major residential appeal  inquiries ,enforcement appeals , local plan examinations and appearances in the Magistrates' and Crown Courts , the High Court and the Court of Appeal.

For several years he has been a member of the East of England RTPI Regional Activities Committee and has organised the Region's annual planning law update conference in Cambridge.

A recognised expert in his field with over 30 years of development experience. He has been bi-annually elected on to the East of England Regional Royal Town Planning Institute’s Management Board since 1995. After graduating from Oxford Polytechnic’s planning school Robert worked in both West Berkshire and then the City and District of St Albans Councils. Robert is a Director at David Lock Associates where for the last 21 years he has advised on the provision of strategies to deliver implementable industrial and commercial planning permissions. This work extends from regional promotion, resolving site specific constraints – such as contamination, co-ordinating projects teams, negotiating planning obligations and advising on the implementation of schemes. Much of his work involves delivering logistics, power, energy, data centres and both large scale City centre office and health care facilities.

Beth is a Principal Planning Policy and Climate Action Manager at Castle Point Borough Council. She has more than ten years of experience in local authority planning, having previously worked at Colchester City Council. Previous to this she worked in Waste and Minerals Policy and in the Lead Local Flood Authority teams for Essex County Council. She has a variety of specialisms from her roles, and her work interests include Garden Communities, Green Infrastructure and Community Engagement. Beth has recently started running and enjoys supporting Norwich City FC and the England Roses. She also loves travelling and exploring new places.

Matthew is an award winning Principal Social Value and Town Planning Consultant at Arcadis UK. He has been elected to the East of England Regional Activities Committee as of January 2024 and has previously served on the Young Planner’s Committee from June 2020 – to January 2022; and award-winning was a member of the East Midlands Regional Activities Committee from January 2020 to December 2021. He has been a co-lead of the Neurodiversity in Planning network since 2022 and led its re-launch in November 2023.

Matthew studied BSc Psychology at Bangor University, PGDiP Audiology at The University of Manchester, and then MSc Town Planning at Anglia Ruskin University. He is MRTPI chartered, and worked across local authority, developer, and consultancy planning roles across the East of England region. His planning experience is wide ranging, having experience in residential, commercial, industrial, research and development, health, renewable energy, and other infrastructure development projects.

David Carlisle is an Associate Director at AECOM where he specialises in plan making and planning for large-scale new communities providing support to: developers; Local Planning Authorities; and neighbourhood planning groups. He works collaboratively with Government departments and non-departmental public bodies on site promotion, viability and green/blue infrastructure projects. Prior to joining AECOM, he was a member of Croydon’s spatial planning team (2006 – 2012) and worked on the Local Plan from inception through to adoption. David helps supporting employees through the Assessment of Professional Competence and contributes to Continuing Professional Development activities.