NI Planner Live Chairs and Speakers

Emma is a Senior Planner within Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council. She has 10 years professional planning experience, having worked across both the public sector and private sector across the UK and Ireland. Emma has significant experience in dealing with complex major planning applications and working within large multidisciplinary project teams on high profile developments. Emma has sat on the RTPI General Assembly and is currently Chair of the RTPI NI Executive Committee. In her year as Chair, she hopes to promote the planning profession as a career choice to students, resulting in greater diversity entering the profession in the future. 

Justin Cartwright is National Director for Northern Ireland at the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), where he leads NI policy and external affairs work. Justin is a chartered member of CIH and holds a Bachelor of Applied Science (Honours) from RMIT University in Melbourne, having undertaken research on acoustics in the built environment. He is a trustee of Supporting Communities and of the North of Ireland Family History Society.

Kate Clifford is the Director of Rural Community Network Northern Ireland. She has 30 years of experience in rural and community development, with a strong focus on peacebuilding.

RCN is a regional organisation with a membership of groups operating within the community and voluntary sector. RCN’s key functions are to providing support, advice and guidance to rural communities across NI. RCN works with rural communities to articulate their voice to decision makers, ensuring rural areas are not left behind in relation to service delivery, policy making and resource investment.

Ms. Caroline Creamer is Director of the International Centre for Local and Regional Development (ICLRD) and a Research Fellow with both the Social Sciences Institute (MUSSI) and the Innovation Value Institute (IVI) at Maynooth University.  A qualified town planner, Caroline has for the past 20+ years worked in a research and management capacity on a number of funded projects in the areas of strategic spatial planning, balanced regional development, urban and rural regeneration, place-making, multi-level governance and collaborative networking.  This has entailed working in partnership with a range of stakeholders including central and local government, regional authorities, NGOs, research centres and communities across the island of Ireland.  Caroline is also Facilitator of the All Ireland Smart Cities Forum (AISCF) and ESPON Contact Point (ECP) for Ireland.

Rosemary is a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute and is a senior planning professional with nearly 30 years of experience spanning both public and private sectors in Northern Ireland and beyond. As Chief Planner and Director for Regional Planning Governance and Legislation at the Department for Infrastructure, she leads the Department’s Planning Improvement Programme, oversees planning legislation, and manages planning responsibilities for Rathlin Island.

Her career includes 18 years as a Commissioner with the Planning Appeals Commission, where she played a central role in delivering appeal decisions and reports that have shaped the region’s planning landscape. Notably, Rosemary was instrumental in the establishment and delivery of Northern Ireland’s first Independent Examination of a Council’s Local Development Plan.

Prior to her current role, she worked in consultancy, advising clients across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, bringing a cross-border perspective to complex planning issues. Rosemary is widely respected for her leadership in planning reform, governance, and legislative development.

Helen is a Strategic Planner with over 30 years’ experience working across public and private sectors, both in the UK and internationally. Her specialism includes regeneration, masterplanning, inclusive healthy placemaking, development management, infrastructure planning, strategic policy development, community engagement and service improvement. She has led major development schemes such as Oak Wharf, a canal redevelopment site in Hackney, London and a Model City Plan for over 4 million people in Lagos, Nigeria, and more recently leading on a range of Garden Town developments and urban extensions for mixed use schemes comprising housing, schools and major infrastructure of more than 6,000 dwellings on behalf of Buckinghamshire Council.

She is the Founder and Chair of BAME Planners Network, promoting  diversity and inclusion in the planning profession. She is also an Advisory Board Member for Women in Planning and President of ICOGA Europe (Idia College alumni association). Helen has won several awards and was a judge in the RTPI London Region Awards 2021, RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence in 2020 and 2021.

Helen has been a member of the  RTPI General Assembly since 2019, RTPI Membership Panel (2016-2017), RTPI International Committee (2019), RTPI Membership and Ethics Committee (2020 to date) and was part of the International Strategy working group (2020/21).

Helen is RTPI President 2025. 

Ciarán has been Director of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects since 2015. RSUA is a charity dedicated to enhancing Northern Ireland's built environment for the benefit of all through the promotion of architecture. It is the professional body for architects based in Northern Ireland and has approximately 1,000 members. RSUA has an alliance with RIBA. Ciarán has been Chair of the Climate NI Steering Group since 2019. He is Co-Chair of the Belfast Retrofit Delivery Hub and is Vice-Chair of the Northern Ireland Construction Group.

Tamasin is founder and Managing Director of Omnipower Renewables, a renewable energy development and investor advisory company active across the UK and Ireland.  Specialising in identifying, acquiring and developing renewable energy sites, she is growing a pipeline of onshore wind, solar and energy storage projects at various stages of development with key joint venture partners MPG. Alongside this, she was elected to the role of Chair of RenewableNI in March 2024, the local voice of the renewable industry.  Before founding Omnipower Renewables, Tamasin was UK Director for a leading international renewables developer, where she was responsible for establishing and delivering a 3 GW pipeline of onshore wind, solar and energy storage projects across the UK.

Laura Gilhespy is a training consultant for the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, specialising in personal safety and lone working. With a background in local authority health and safety, she brings expertise in risk management. Also, a qualified business coach and mentor, she empowers individuals and organisations to grow confidently while creating safer, more resilient working environments.

Mark is a Chartered Town Planner with over twenty years’ experience working in the public sector in Wales.  This included development management, planning enforcement, appeals and policy followed by management and leadership roles.  Prior to starting at the Royal Town Planning Institute in March 2024, Mark was a Head of Service with responsibility for planning, building control, regeneration, highways and flooding.  He also has seven years’ experience of the planning system in Northern Ireland, having been commissioned by the Department for Infrastructure to advise on measuring planning performance and by a District Council to review its planning service and advise on the implications of the 2022 Northern Ireland Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee reports.

Mark is a past Chair of the Planning Officers’ Society Wales and of the South East Wales Strategic Planning Group, was an external examiner for Cardiff University’s School of City and Regional Planning, and is a past member of the RTPI’s General Assembly.  He is passionate about the role of planners in making the world a better place, and the collaborative approach with all built environment professions that is needed to achieve this.

As the Director for Wales, Northern Ireland and Planning Aid England, Mark is responsible for leading the Institute’s policy, public affairs and member services work in Wales and Northern Ireland and is the lead Director for our planning advice service delivered by approximately 400 volunteers for Planning Aid England. 

Outside work, Mark lives with his partner and Wilson the beagle, Sebastian the cat and Karma the chameleon.  He enjoys travel, caravanning, photography and socialising.

Maria O’Loan is Head of Planning and Environment at Tughans LLP and a Legal Associate of the Royal Town Planning Institute. With over 20 years’ experience in planning and environmental law, Maria is a trusted adviser to both public and private sector clients across a wide range of complex planning, infrastructure, and environmental matters.

Maria’s expertise and leadership in the field have earned her national recognition. She was named one of The Planner's Women of Influence for 2025 and is featured on the ENDS Report Power List as one of the UK’s most influential environmental professionals.

Dr Gavan Rafferty, PhD, MSc, BA (Hons.), MRTPI, PgCert HEP, FHEA, is a Lecturer in Spatial Planning and Development and Course Director of the BSc/MSci Planning, Regeneration and Development programme at Ulster University. Gavan’s research spans cross-border spatial planning, the relationship between spatial planning and community planning (public service delivery), healthy urban planning and inclusive engagement in planning. Recent research projects include Belfast THRI[VES], with Belfast City Council, examining the relationship between public spaces and liveability, and InPLACE: Investigating Place, Planning and Commuting, examining how potential work trends (pre- and post-COVID) impact settlements and their communities across the island of Ireland. Gavan is a member of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP), Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, chartered member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), past chair of the RTPI Northern Ireland Executive Committee, and is a NILGA Facilitator and Assessor for their Elected Member training programmes. 

James is a Fellow and Chartered Traffic and Transport Engineer/Planner (CEng) of 23+years, with a wealth of experience gained within both the public and private sectors and across the UK and Ireland.

James is currently the Head of Transport Planning and Modelling Unit and the Technical lead for the Transport Sector on Climate within the Department for Infrastructure. He has previously had senior leadership roles with Jacobs, Amey and RPS delivering transport planning, mobility and engineering design solutions across the UK and Ireland.

In his spare time, James enjoys travelling, and a sports enthusiast (anything with a ball). Now that his old legs have gone you will often find him coaching kids (girls and boys) in GAA and soccer at the weekends for his local clubs.

Nick Salt is a Senior Planner with Turley and has been based in their Belfast office since joining in January 2022.  In that time, he has worked on several major projects in throughout the UK and Ireland, including significant urban regeneration schemes, major logistics proposals and residential schemes.

Nick graduated from Queens University Belfast in 2017 with a Planning and Development MSc, following a career switch.  He has previously worked in development management for the Isle of Man Government, and with local planning authorities throughout England during a spell with Capita.  Nick was awarded NI Young Planner of the Year in 2024.

Daniel is a Chartered Town Planner with a PhD in town planning and national policy making from the University of Liverpool. He re-joined the RTPI from the Town and Country Planning Association, and has experience working in parliament, government, and a think tank. Daniel is responsible for the RTPI’s research output, practice advice, academic journal, networks, and wider role as a learned society.