Philip Kolvin QC

Philip was appointed as Chairman of the Civic Trust on 31st July 2007.

He is a practising barrister and Head of Licensing in the Chambers of Mark Lowe QC, Grays Inn Square, London. Philip took silk in 2009, and is also Chairman of the Institute of Licensing (the national body for licensing professionals). He has a particular interest in the night time economy and the impact it has on local communities.

Philip has written a number of publications, including Licensed Premises: Law and Practice, Gambling for Local Authorities: Licensing, Planning and Regeneration. He is also the author of Saving Open Space which is a guide for campaigners.

Philip has a long standing interest in the environment, and has served as a national Trustee of the Campaign to Protect Rural England. He has been involved in a number of campaigns, including the Crystal Palace Campaign which successfully prevented the building of a multiplex cinema on an historic park.

Nigel Burton

Nigel was appointed chairman on 1 April 2004, and retired on 31st July 2007, although he remains on the Board of Trustees.
Nigel is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and for more than 30 years, has worked as the property or estates director of multiple retail companies, including Dorothy Perkins, Clarks Shoes, Boots and Tesco. He retired as Development Director at Waitrose in July, although continues to work for the company as a consultant. Please click here to read Nigel’s interview for the John Lewis staff magazinie.

Nigel was a member of the Board of the British Council of Shopping Centres from 1983 to 1993, President in 1990/91. In recent years he has been active in a number of Trade and Property bodies, including a period as President of the Property Managers’ Association and Chairman of the Real Estate Committee of the British Retailer’s Association. Nigel is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and is a member of the Board of the successful Abergavenny Food Festival. He lives and farms on the Skirrid mountain near Abergavenny, where he and his wife successfully breed and show Welsh ponies and cobs.

Professor David Banister, BA, PhD, MLIT

David is Professor of Transport Studies at the School of Geography and the Environment and Acting Director of the Environmental Change Institute. Until recently he was Professor of Transport Planning at University College, London. He has also been Research Fellow at the Warren Centre in the University of Sydney (2001 - 2002) on the Sustainable Transport for a Sustainable City project and was Visiting VSB Professor at the Timbergen Institute in Amsterdam (1994 - 1997). He is currently a visiting Professor at the University of Bodenkultur in Vienna (2007). He has been a Trustee since 2005 and is Chairman of the Policy Committee.

Dr Peter Diplock

Peter is a Chartered Engineer and Member of the Institute of Chemical Engineers. He is an experienced consultant in the management of change in organisations, and a founder director of consultancy Tesseract Limited. He has a particular research interest in the areas of leadership and culture change, and creative problem solving.

He has also worked for business consulting practice, PA Consulting Group. Prior to his career in consultancy, he worked for the Mars Corporation.

He has been a member of the Marlow Society for many years, serving as Chairman of the Local History Group, then on the Executive Committee, as Chairman. He is currently Vice-President. He was Chairman of ANTAS (the Association of North Thames Amenity Societies) and is now their President. He is now Chairman of The Friends of Rutland County Museum and Oakham Castle.

Appointed a Trustee of the Civic Trust on 1 April 2004, Peter is a member of both the Policy and Finance Committees.

Kevin Trickett, BA (Hons), MBA, MA (Phil), MAPM

Kevin is an experienced project manager in the Department for Work and Pensions and is a Member of the Association of Project Management. He has been a committee member of Wakefield Civic Society since 1990 and was elected as the Society’s President in 2002, since when he has embarked on a modernisation strategy to increase the Society’s membership and income and also to raise the Society’s profile and influence within the city’s business community.

Kevin is also a member of the Executive Committee of theYorkshire and Humber Association of Civic Societies (YHACS) where he has worked closely with fellow Executive Committee members to strengthen the civic society movement across the region.

Appointed a Trustee of The Civic Trust on 4th February 2004, Kevin now chairs the National Committee for Civic Societies. His ambition for the National Committee is that it should help societies and regional associations to develop their own strategies to face up to the particular challenges they face in the twenty-first century. Kevin’s interests include reading,theatre (as an audience member!), foreign travel and philosophy.

Dr Helen Walker

Helen is an independent policy consultant who works to support the creation of sustainable communities.  She is appointed as a specialist advisor to the Government’s CLG Select Committee and as a project consultant to the South East Regional Development Agency on the SE Excellence Making Places Programme which co-ordinates the national built environment agencies working in the SE Region.  She is appointed as a CABE Enabler, a member of the Commission’s Research Reference Committee and Advisory Group on the Sustainable Cities Programme.

Helen was formerly National Advisor: Sustainable Communities at the Improvement and Development Agency for Local Government and represented IDeA on several Government programme boards, including Cleaner, Safer Greener and Local Area Agreements.  She held posts in the Government’s Neighbourhood Renewal Unit, Secretariat for the Egan Review of Sustainable Communities Skills, Academy for Sustainable Communities, and the Environment Agency.

Helen has a local authority planning policy background; she worked for the Greater London Council, London Strategic Policy Unit, Association of District Councils, and for the Chief Executive’s policy units of LB Lambeth and Brighton.

A former Enterprise Director and Chair of Department of Urban Development and Regeneration at University of Westminster, Helen held academic posts at the universities of Sussex, UCL London, Brighton, Leeds and Portsmouth and has published on a range of built environment topics.  She has been a British Council environmental advisor to the Guandong Provincial Government, China.

Helen is a member of the Executive Committee of Brighton and Hove Regency Society and was appointed as a Trustee and member of the Policy Committee of the Civic Trust on 1 April 2004.

Malcolm Sharp

Malcolm’s current Position is as one of three Corporate Directors for Huntingdonshire District Council, together with line management responsibility for Housing, Planning, Environmental and Community Health, Technical Services and Operations (Waste, recycling, parks, countryside services etc.).

He is a graduate of London University in Geography and a Planner by Profession. Malcolm has 38 years local government service in a variety of authorities including London Borough of Hackney, Northampton New Town Corporation, East Midlands Airport (secondment), Nottingham City Council and Huntingdonshire where he was latterly Head of Planning. He has a wide experience of all aspects of urban and rural planning, economic development, and environmental issues generally.

He is a Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, is a member of the Environmental Advisory Group to the East of England Regional Assembly. Until taking up his present post in 2006 he was also on the National Committee of the Planning Officer’s Society.

Malcolm has been a long term supporter of the Civic Trust. Appointed a Trustee in 2007, Malcolm represents the interests of local authorities on the Board.

Peter Cooper BSc CEng MICE

Peter is a Chartered Civil Engineer.  He worked for contractors, local government and consultants on a wide variety of infrastructure projects until he suffered a spinal cord injury in 1994.  This meant that he was no longer able to pursue his civil engineering career and had to employ his work experience in other ways.  He spent five years as a volunteer at the local Citizen’s Advice Bureau, joined Scarborough & District Civic Society where he was Chairman for over four years, and was a founding member of the Yorkshire and Humber Association of Civic Societies, becoming Chairman in January 2002. When the Urban Renaissance project was launched in the Y&H region, Peter became vice-chairman of the Scarborough Town Team.

Appointed a Trustee of the Civic Trust in 2008.

Hilary Silvester

Hilary, a native of Nottingham, was educated at Nottingham Girls’ High School and King’s College, University of London, where she read for a BA Honours degree in English. After graduating she remained in London, working in business and later in journalism, before returning to Nottingham where she has lived ever since. Hilary’s career in education culminated in a post as a headteacher; she has also been involved in lecturing and in organising courses for the Open University.

She has for many years had a strong involvement in voluntary movements, and has served on the national committees of the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers and the Victorian Society. She has been an active member of other voluntary and professional organisations and has considerable involvement with local government negotiating and consultative bodies.

A long standing member of Nottingham Civic Society, she has chaired the society for the past five years and has recently been appointed a Vice President. She is currently Vice Chair of the East Midlands Association of Civic Societies and represents the Association on a number of bodies, inluding the Civic Trust’s National Committee. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Hilary was appointed as a Trustee in 2008.

Catherine Graham - Harrison

Catherine is an independent consultant working as an adviser to a wide range of organisations in the not-for-profit sector. Since establishing her consultancy in 1994, her work has covered strategic reviews of existing organisations and projects; development plans for new organisations and projects; funding strategies and advice on, and management of, organisational change and development. She also works as a mentor.

Clients have included the Victoria and Albert Museum; the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation; a large family trust; the London Borough of Camden; the Camelot Foundation; Arts Council, England; WWF-UK; Tate Modern; the Big Lottery Fund and Amnesty International. 

Before becoming a consultant, she was Director of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and before that Community Affairs Director and a senior client manager at Citicorp, where she also ran the Community Investment Programme. She started her career with a number of roles in the voluntary housing sector, the last being Deputy Director of a major London Housing Association.

She has a passionate concern about both the built and the natural environment which has been reflected in almost all of her professional career, as well as in her the rest of her life.

She is a Board member of Natural England, a trustee of the Foundling Museum; a Governor of Coram and a member of the National Trust’s Architecture Panel and was, until recently, also a trustee of the National Heritage Memorial Fund; a Board member of the Heritage Lottery Fund and a Trustee of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.