People Power
Catalyst for change

Speakers

Loyd Grossman CBE is an entrepreneur, writer and broadcaster who has had a long involvement with museums and heritage in the UK. A former Commissioner of English Heritage and of the Museums and Galleries Commission, he is Chairman of the Churches Conservation Trust and Chairman of the Heritage Alliance. He is also President of NADFAS, Deputy Chair of the Royal Drawing School, a member of the board of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions and a Governor of the Building Crafts College.

Loyd was born in Boston, and educated at Boston University (BA), the London School of Economics (MSc Econ) and Magdalene College Cambridge (MPhil, PhD). He is an Emeritus Governor of the LSE and a member of the Council of the British School at Rome.

He is a Liveryman of the Carpenters' Company, an Honorary Liveryman of the Glaziers and Middle Warden of the Worshipful Company of Arts Scholars. Loyd also plays guitar in his band The New Forbidden who have appeared at Glastonbury and a number of other festivals.

Nigel is a specialist conservation architect who trained in Cambridge and is director of Archangel Architects, a practice whose focus is church buildings old and new, of all listings and none. Alongside his practice, Nigel is currently undertaking a PhD in Conservation at the University of York, looking at change, narrative and the community ownership of historic buildings. He is also a research associate at the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture at York, contributing to the development of an Historic England-funded online resource for the creation of Statements of Significance and writing an academic module for the post-graduate diploma on the English Parish Church.

Much of Nigel’s work involves finding ways to enable non-professionals to reconnect with their historic buildings, particularly communal ones such as churches. To this end he has authored a number of papers and books, most recently (with Andrew Mottram) Buildings for Mission: a complete guide to the care, conservation and development of churches (Canterbury Press, 2015). He keeps one foot in the world of practice and the other in world of academia, and is happiest when building bridges between the two.

James Simpson studied Architecture at the Edinburgh College of Art and received his BArch(Hons) degree from Heriot Watt University. He trained with Ian G Lindsay & Partners and with Sir Bernard Feilden at his practice in Norwich. After returning to Edinburgh in the mid-1970s, James continued to work with Sir Bernard on St Giles' Cathedral and began teachingArchitectural Conservation at the Edinburgh College of Art. In 1977 he joined Stewart Brown to form Simpson & Brown where he worked personally on major conservation projects. James became a consultant to the practice in January 2010. 

James has been a member of numerous boards and committees, including the Ancient Monuments Board, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland and the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust. He is a Vice President of ICOMOS-UK. He has initiated and co-founded several charitable trusts, including the Cockburn Conservation Trust, the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust and the Scottish Redundant Churches Trust. Some of his current interests are in India, where he is a consultant to the Punjab Government for heritage projects in Amritsar and has advised on the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta. He continues to lecture and campaign for heritage causes in Scotland and beyond.

James has published widely. Principal publications include: Vitruvius Scoticus facsimile, introduction and notes on the plates (Paul Harris, 1980, and 2nd edition, Dover Press, 2011); contributions to The Care and Conservation of Georgian Houses - A Maintenance Manual for the New Town of Edinburgh (ENTCC, 1991); The Care and Conservation of Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings by Government Departments in Scotland (DNH, 1994); The British Standard Guide to the Principles of the Conservation of Historic Buildings (BS 7913-1998). 

Euan Leitch is the Advocacy and Communications Officer for The Built Environment Forum Scotland with special responsibility as an effective advocate for the historic environment. The role requires a cross-sectoral approach engaging with other areas of the built environment including planning, architecture and construction as well as national and local government. Euan has a MA (Hons) in Architectural History from the University of Edinburgh and a PGDip Urban and Regional Planning with distinction from Heriot Watt University. He is an experienced communicator and commentator on historic environment and planning issues. He is passionate about the built environment, historic and contemporary, and has a wealth of experience, latterly as a heritage building consultant and Assistant Director of the Cockburn Association which is a 140 year old Scottish Charity that works to promote the conservation and enhancement of Edinburgh's landscape and historic and architectural heritage, and encourage high quality contemporary design for buildings that blend with and enhance their surroundings.
Matthew began his career as a Regeneration Graduate Trainee at the London Borough of Lewisham. From there he moved to the regeneration consultancy Shared Intelligence (SI) delivering a number of consultancy projects across the public, private and voluntary sectors, including DCMS, One NorthEast and numerous local authorities. Matthew then spent three years as a Regeneration Officer with the London Borough of Lambeth, developing policy and projects and securing funding for programmes targeted at the borough's small businesses and social enterprises. He was also project manager for Lambeth Savings and Credit Union during the lead up to its launch.

Matthew joined the CCT in 2008 as the Regeneration Officer for the Regeneration Taskforce; he became head of the team in 2012. He acts as Project Director for the Trust's major projects including the Canny Space, Quay Place and All Souls Bolton and leads the Trust's consultancy work. Up until last year Matthew was the Chair of Forest Recycling Project, an environmental social enterprise in East London.
David joined the Canal & River Trust in 2002 with a background in education, carpentry and joinery. He has a particular interest in lime mortars and lock heritage. He is the main point of contact for the team for historic boats and is currently developing guidance on the disposal of unlicensed boats. David was involved in the restoration of the Cotswold and Droitwich Canals working with alongside volunteers and enjoys looking after key sites such as the Caen Flight and Gloucester Docks.

As Framework Heritage adviser, Audrey’s role is to provide specialist technical advice and guidance to all of Canal & Rivers Trust’s framework and operational contracts. A key part of the role will be to ensure our partners and contractors adhere to our high standards of compliance and workmanship when working on our heritage assets. She joined the Trust in 2011 as a heritage volunteer before taking up a staff post later the same year. Audrey has a very keen interest in working and engaging with communities and volunteers on canal heritage projects.
Sarah has worked across the museum sector in the West Midlands since 2005 in a variety of positions. Past roles have included working as both a freelance and Project Curator for Birmingham Museums, on the Birmingham History Galleries and the We Made It, Nuts, Bolts, Gadgets and Gizmos gallery at Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum. Sarah is currently working as the Collections and Exhibitions Manager at The Coffin Works, Birmingham’s latest heritage attraction. She is also actively involved in promoting the history of the West Midlands in her role as a committee member for the Friends of the Centre of West Midlands History at the University of Birmingham. Sarah oversees the Coffin Works’ various social media platforms, initiating new campaigns jointly with her sister, Anne-Marie and has successfully managed to build a following from scratch.

Anne-Marie has worked in museums across Birmingham for ten years in a number of different roles. Currently she’s working as Visitor Services Team Manager at Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum. She is thoroughly passionate about Birmingham, its history, and communicating the city's stories to wider audiences especially on digital platforms. Her role at Birmingham Conservation Trust involves managing The Coffin Work's Facebook page, and creating original content to share with Facebook fans and other social-media audiences, in order to tell the Newman Brothers' story. Anne-Marie Hayes is a keen photographer with a special interest in people and the environment. This is reflected in the images she has taken for the Coffin Works, and in doing so she has successfully managed to engage the public with photos that connect people with the building and its history.
Dr Rebecca Madgin is Senior Lecturer in Urban Development and Management at the University of Glasgow. She is an urban historian by training and her current research explores the relationship between economic and emotional values of heritage and their role in urban redevelopment. Rebecca has published widely on heritage and urban development issues and ongoing projects include the relationship between intangible and tangible heritage in London, place attachment and heritage in Glasgow, the role of history within public art in Scotland, and how decisions about heritage are made in the context of rapid urbanisation in China. A distinctive feature of her work focuses on the extent to which the urban past informs the future development of the city. As such Rebecca retains an active involvement with a number of planning and heritage organisations at the national and city levels in Scotland and England. Related to this Rebecca sits on the Editorial Board of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation's professional journal 'Context' and is an Associate Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

John Rodger MBE ARIBA trained as an Architect and as a Town Planner in Scotland and practised as an Architect and Town Planner with private consultants before moving to South Wales in 1970 to take up the position in charge of Local Plans and Action Areas with the former Monmouthshire County Council. There he led a multi-disciplinary team responsible for plan making and project implementation including housing renewal areas, conservation schemes and the multimillion pound Magor and Undy Villages Expansion Project.
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He became Assistant County Planning Officer for Gwent County Council in 1974, responsible for forward planning, development control and conservation as well the County Council’s interest in urban renewal areas and large projects such as the after use of the Ebbw Vale Garden Festival Site. In 1995 he was appointed as County Planning and Economic Development Officer to Gwent County Council managing nearly 100 FTE staff.

In 1997 he was appointed to lead Torfaen County Borough Council’s bid to achieve World Heritage Site status for the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape. For twelve years, until 2011, he was the Blaenavon Project Director and WHS Co-ordinator, responsible for the preparation and implementation of the WHS Management Plan.

John has presented papers at conferences in several different countries and advised a number of industrial heritage sites in the UK and overseas.

He is a board member of the European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH).

September 2011
Karen Houghton, Chief Executive of Ancoats Dispensary Trust

I have the great honour of working with a passionate group of people in a radical community business in Manchester.

We are saving the Ancoats Dispensary from being demolished, but more importantly we are creating a vibrant business that provides somewhere for people to come together, have fun, share food and feel better about themselves.

We are in a joint venture with Igloo Regeneration and have a Stage 1 Heritage Enterprise Grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, which means we can stop the building from deteriorating further while we work up schemes for its repurposing into a twenty first century community facility.

I trained as a chartered surveyor and have experience in business development, community engagement and project management. This job feels like I’ve finally found the place where I can use all my varied skills, but more importantly where I feel that what we are doing will make a positive difference to lots of people’s lives, not least our own. That’s at the heart of why I’m so passionate about community businesses.

www.ancoatsdispensarytrust.co.uk
Karen is a graduate of Edinburgh University and of Queen’s University Belfast. She spent her early career at Durham University and as a library building consultant at the University of Houston in Texas before moving to Queen’s University of Belfast as Architecture & Planning Librarian and is now in library management. She has chaired the international committee on library buildings, is currently on the European Research Libraries architectural advisory group and chairs the UK Designing Libraries Advisory Board.

Karen was Chair of Hearth from 2000-2015, has served on the Historic Buildings Council for Northern Ireland and is a long-standing member of the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society (UAHS). She has published widely on a range of library and architectural topics and has edited a number of UAHS publications including Modern Ulster Architecture and Bendhu.

She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, an honorary member of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects and was awarded an OBE in 2007 for services to architectural heritage.