Committees

Mura is a chartered urban planner and designer with over ten years’ experience working on climate, sustainability and placemaking across a range of sectors. Mura is the current Chair for RTPI in Northern Ireland.

Mura has worked for Transport for London, the Prince’s Foundation, Lisburn City Centre Management, Ards Borough Council, and more recently in Ulster University. Mura currently works for Urban Scale Interventions, a creative design consultancy that adopts an inclusive design-led approach to projects in urban resilience, cultural regeneration and climate proofing. She is currently completing her PhD which explores the role of design in creating urban resilience and the ability for cities and towns to adapt to change and uncertainty.

Catharine is the Community Planning Manager for Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council and is responsible for managing and facilitating collaboration between a number of statutory partners delivering services to improve the social, economic and environmental wellbeing of local people. She has been a town planner for over 30 years having previously worked in Wyre Borough Council and Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council before returning to Northern Ireland to work in the voluntary sector on planning projects with community groups. A graduate of Birmingham Polytechnic, Catharine strongly believes in the importance of involving communities in making decisions which ultimately impact on their lives.

Gemma has almost 20 years experience of the town planning profession and is a Chartered Town Planner.  Gemma is the Immediate Past Chair of the Royal Town Planning Institute in the Northern Ireland region, having sat on the Committee for over 6 years she was heavily involved in a wide range of planning matters.

Gemma’s career started in Local Government with the Department of Environment  Planning Service,  where she worked in the Development Control section assessing a variety of planning applications and has a first hand understanding of the inner workings of local authority planning. After a short stint travelling the globe Gemma worked for New South Wales government in Sydney, Australia providing advice to local government authorities providing advice on their social and affordable housing policy.  On her return to Northern Ireland Gemma has spent the last 16 years working for several private sector planning consultancies, advising a range of individual and blue chip clients.  During this time Gemma  gained a wealth of experience across the residential, commercial, waste, minerals and industrial planning sectors.  Gemma is currently retained by a number of developers, commercial clients and architects to provide ongoing planning advice.

Gemma acts as an Expert Witness and has provided planning evidence in a number of high profile legal matters in the last 10 years, most recently acted for the successful Notice Party in the Belfast City Council against the Planning Appeals Commission case relating to student accommodation in Belfast.

In 2014, Jobling Planning + Environment Ltd was formed with a focus on providing sound independent commercial advice to assist with the delivery of development projects. The practice, now known as JPE Planning continues to act for a range of clients and is focused on delivering reliable planning advice to a range of clients.

Sharon currently works as a Senior Planning Manager in Local Government following the transfer of planning powers in 2015 and leads Local Development Plan. She has over twenty years planning experience in Central Government. Her remit has included Development Management and Enforcement. Sharon also spent an extensive period in the former Department of the Environment’s Planning Headquarters bringing forward guidance on planning, reform of the planning system and led the team responsible for major waste applications in Northern Ireland. Sharon also worked for five years in the then Department of Regional Development in the implementation of the Regional Development Strategy and the preparation of new planning policy.

Emma has been a Planner for 15 years having practiced in England and Northern Ireland and is a chartered member of the RTPI. She is currently an Associate Director with Turley, based in Belfast.  Her work includes a variety of projects in the residential, regeneration, minerals and energy sectors. Her role ranges from the preparation of planning applications and supporting statements to the management of Environmental Statements and the preparation of representations to local development plans as they have emerged.

Before moving home to Northern Ireland in 2015, Emma was Senior Vice Chair for the RTPI North East Branch. She joined the Northern Ireland Committee in 2016 and was elected as Chair for the branch in November 2018.

Erin is a Senior Planner at Turley in Belfast, working on some of the largest regeneration sites across the City, including Titanic Quarter, the Kings Hall and Sirocco. This exposure has allowed her to build up extensive experience in major city centre regeneration projects, with the latest approval at Sirocco representing a £450million investment in Belfast.

Erin is also a founding member of the Women in Planning Network NI which champions gender equality in the planning industry and was recently named on ‘The Planner Women of Influence’ list for 2021.

Despite his short career, Justin is a Spatial and Smart City Planner with a demonstrated history of diversified experience developing and implementing smart city planning tools and PlanTech along with working on major transportation, regeneration, development, and renewable energy projects. 

Justin graduated from Queen’s University Belfast in 2018 with a First-Class BSc degree in Environmental Planning. During his time at undergraduate level, Justin received awards for the highest performing planning student in his second year of study and the prestigious Simon Kirk Award for the highest performing final year student.  

Justin joined AECOM’s brilliant Traffic, Transport, Streets, and Highways Planning Teams, working on major schemes across both the North and South of Ireland to great success and learning a wealth of diversified experience.   

With a significant passion to make an impact on the future of the planning profession, Justin then undertook the role of Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Associate, leading on a novel two-year public and private sector collaborative research project between QUB Planning and VU.CITY exploring the future of digital planning through the creation and use of 3D digital twins, City Information Modelling, emerging PlanTech, and embedding these tools within the planning process. Under Justin’s leadership, this industry based KTP project was recently graded ‘Outstanding’ across every assessment category by Innovate UK’s KTP panel; a very rare accolade, and Justin has been nominated for a ‘Future Leader’ award.  

While leading the aforementioned project, Justin also returned to education and is currently close to completing a part-time Master’s degree in Planning and Development at QUB, has co-authored a peer-reviewed academic paper due for publication in International Planning Studies, diversified his growing skillset with qualifications in UX Design, Agile Business Analyst, and has been awarded an ESRC NINE PhD studentship on Digital Planning and PlanTech to commence in October 2021 with QUB.

Adam is an ambitious and passionate planning student with an interest in post-conflict regeneration who enjoys promoting the planning profession. 

Having recently completed a bachelor’s ​degree at Ulster University in “Planning, Regeneration and Development” he is continuing his studies with a Master’s in “City Planning and Design” at Queen’s University Belfast.   

Adam ​co-founded and chaired Ulster University's UPLAN Society, a student-led planning society.  Alongside his committee, he organised a successful conference in March 2020 based around the theme of “Planning for a Resilient Future”.

Lisa is a Graduate Planner at Arup, working predominantly within the Transport Consulting sector. She is currently a licentiate member of the RTPI and is working towards achieving chartership within the next few years. In her short career, she has demonstrated experience working on various multi-disciplinary highway projects, active travel strategy development and has completed extensive research into the future development of greenway and rail links in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Lisa recently graduated from Ulster University in 2021 with a First-Class, Masters of Science degree in Planning, Regeneration and Development. During her time as a student, Lisa received awards for both the EPLA NI Planning and Property Development Prize 2018-2019 and the RTPI NI Student Project Prize 2021 for Research into ‘Cross-border Cooperation in the Planning and Delivery of Greenways on the Island of Ireland’.

Lisa is a passionate young planner, with particular interest in the role of planning policy in achieving decarbonisation and encouraging modal shift across Northern Ireland. Through the integration of active travel interventions, she believes that further policies should be developed and implemented that have the potential to encourage long-term, sustainable modal shift.

Leo (he/him) is a postgraduate planning student with a keen interest in how urban design can create fairer and more sustainable communities. He is in his final term of MRUP Regional and Urban Planning at University College Dublin, having graduated from Queen’s University Belfast in 2020 with a First Class Honours B.A. degree in English and Politics.

Leo has undertaken research in aid of the first draft of Northern Ireland’s Energy Strategy with the Department for the Economy (NI), as well as research relating to Strategic Housing Developments for An Bord Pleanála. He is currently completing his thesis on transit-oriented development in the Dublin metropolitan area.