2026 Speakers
Meet the speakers for this years UK Brownfield Regeneration Summit
Michael Brown
Technical Director
Harworth Group
Michael is a Chartered Civil Engineer and Member of the Association for Project Management. Michael spent nearly twenty years in multi-disciplinary consultancies, providing services to a range of public and private sector clients within the defence, education, police and land development and remediation sectors. This included the project management and directing of large multi-disciplinary teams and specific contract administration work on building and civil engineering/remediation contracts.
Michael’s role within Harworth Group is to provide technical, programme and project management advice and oversight on acquisition and development projects. He is also involved in building and maintaining longer term relationships and undertaking due diligence on strategic land opportunities. His role covers technical input throughout the full project cycle from acquisition, through planning and delivery. This includes preparing and implementing strategies for long-term divestment, maintenance, and site completion.
David Crook
Brownfield Land Release Fund Programme Lead, One Estate
Local Government Association
David Crook is the Programme Lead for Brownfield Land Release Fund, an MHCLG Funded initiative, part of the One Public Estate partnership between the Local Government Association and the Cabinet Office.
Starting his career with the Planning Inspectorate, David has over 25 years experience working in planning, housing and regeneration with government departments and agencies leading on local, environmental and strategic planning and working with local economic development partnerships.
David worked on developing a framework for station related development with MHCLG before leading on the Housing Infrastructure Fund for Homes England in the South West. As well as leading on BLRF for the LGA, David has been supporting initiatives to promote small publicly owned brownfield sites for housing including the Small Sites Aggregator and Prisoners Building Homes.
David is a member of the National Brownfield Forum providing an end user voice in the technical consideration of brownfield development.
A Charted Town Planner, David has also been a researcher and visiting lecturer in university planning schools in the south west and Wales.
Mark is an award winning urban designer with wide ranging experience delivering challenging masterplanning and public realm projects throughout the UK. Marks work spans across many aspects of design and development, including city centre strategy, high street renewal, public realm and brownfield regeneration. Mark takes a collaborative approach to the design and delivery of complex city and town centre regeneration sites, including recent work including major transformational projects in Greater Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle.
Mark Graham
Director
LDA Design
Richard has over eighteen years’ experience in the industry and is a Chartered Environmentalist and Qualified Person under the CL:AIRE Definition of Waste: Code of Practice. He is a specialist in materials reuse and waste permitting as well as contaminated land issues. Richard also sits on the Society Environment Soil and Stones Executive Team.
Richard Moakes
Managing Consultant - Environment & Health
Ramboll
Vikki Patton
Head of Nature Positive Services
Ramboll
With over 26 years’ experience in biodiversity conservation and business development, Vikki is an award-winning Biodiversity Technical Specialist and skilled negotiator leading change across development industries and government institutions to meet the biodiversity agenda. Specialising in Biodiversity Net Gain (since 2016) and Nature Positive, Vikki develops bespoke solutions for UK and international clients to meet Biodiversity Strategy ambitions. She supports clients' delivery against corporate biodiversity targets and reporting, and alignment with global frameworks including Science Based Targets for Nature (SBTN).
Vikki has worked as a Biodiversity Consultant and Scientific Researcher on projects in the UK (Scotland, England), Middle East (Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain) and Africa (Uganda, Kenya, Madagascar, South Africa). She undertakes environmental due diligence with a view to minimising biodiversity and wider environmental impacts from development and wider industry. With extensive experience in the private sector, Vikki has a deep understanding of business drivers and is adept at finding agreeable solutions among stakeholders to enable biodiversity, and wider ecosystem services, wins.
Linda Raynor
Senior Director - Head of Regeneration
Local Partnerships
Linda Raynor is a Director and provides support to local authorities unlocking housing development in order to assist them in meeting their regeneration and housing growth objectives.
Her work has recently included the launching of small sites pilots, providing an options appraisal and strategy for unlocking small brownfield sites which can play an important role in meeting local housing needs.
Linda is a Chartered Planning and Development Surveyor with over 20 years’ experience acting on behalf of public and private sector clients on a wide variety of regeneration and development projects. She has held senior positions at leading property firms DTZ, Grimley, King Sturge, and Arcadis where she developed expertise in leading multi-disciplinary teams and in the preparation of masterplans, development feasibility studies, financial appraisal, funding and delivery mechanisms.
Linda has a first class Masters degree in Urban Regeneration and is a Member of the Institute of Economic Development.
Michael Eaglestone is a Principal Planning Officer in Sheffield City Council’s Major Development and City Centre Team.
He has worked in planning for 20 years in both the fields of minerals and waste and general major development management with experience of a wide range of development projects including both greenfield and brownfield major housing, commercial, industrial minerals and waste project.
Michael Eaglestone
Principal Planning Officer, Central Area & Major Projects Team
Salford City Council
Coming soon
Huw Edwards
Director - Stations & Placemaking
HS2
Coming soon
Sarah Heslop
Strategic Lead - Regeneration, Regeneration & Place
Salford City Counci
Coming soon
James Roy
Principal Manager - DIO Estates Acquisitions & Disposals
UK Ministry of Defence