Conference Speakers

Laura is Senior Planner in the Masterplanning, Design and Conservation Team at Aberdeen City Council. She has worked at the Council for over 12 years and prior to this worked across the North East in Local Development Planning, Strategic Planning as well as in a  Development Management role.  Laura’s interests are in Masterplanning, Placemaking, Conservation and the reuse and redevelopment of historic buildings. She has been involved in a variety of projects and developments across the City, but most recently the fantastic redevelopment of Union Terrace Gardens. 

Laura enjoys working closely with colleagues and knows the importance of peer support and the continued engagement with colleagues and other RTPI members.  She also thoroughly enjoys a little planning debate between Colleagues on a Friday afternoon.

Laura is RTPI Scotland Convenor for 2025 

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. 

Ivan McKee's career has involved a number of senior roles in manufacturing and business, managing companies in the UK as well as Poland, Finland, Croatia and Bosnia.

Early in his career, Ivan spent two years with VSO in Bangladesh. He is currently a trustee of the charity CEI, which supports education and health projects in Bangladesh.

Ivan has been MSP for Glasgow Provan since May 2016. He was brought up in Glasgow where he studied at the University of Strathclyde. He also studied at the University of Newcastle.

He was previously the Minister for Trade, Investment and Innovation and Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise. 

Read more about Ivan McKee on the Scottish Parliament website.

For the seven years prior to joining SSE in August 2024, John was Leader of Dundee City Council and Chairman of the Scottish Cities Alliance, the latter being a unique organisation combining all eight of Scotland's Cities and Scottish Government in a partnership focussed on inward investment and sustainability.

In addition to those roles, John has contributed to and led several important programmes, including, the creation of the Dundee Climate Leadership Group and the Dundee Fairness Leadership Panel, brought the £140 million EDEN Project to Dundee, helped deliver the £300million Tay Cities Deal and sat as a member of the Scottish Government-led City Centre Recovery Taskforce and Advisory Council for Economic Transformation, which led to the development of Scotland's National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET).

Nicola McLachlan is an Executive Director, employee owner and founding member of Collective Architecture. Originally joining the practice in 2006 as a school leaver, she now leads the practices Edinburgh Studio. Nicola has a passion for socially sustainable architecture and strives to ensure communities feel empowered to have a voice in the future of our built environment. Nicola is a champion of the work of women in Scotland, developed through a project she co-leads called Voices of Experience. Nicola is currently leading a series of new and ambitious mixed use, intergenerational and educational projects. She is an active member of the Scotland’s Urban Design Panels and led the Scottish Government’s 2040 travelling Housing Exhibition. In 2018, she was awarded The Young Women’s Movement Award for 30 under 30.  

Amy joined the Steering Group in 2023. She has an MSc in City Planning from the University of Glasgow, graduating in 2020. After graduation she undertook a 9-month research post at Heriot-Watt University, exploring the role of the planning system in tackling racial inequalities in housing. In 2022 Amy won an RTPI Research Award for this work. Following this, Amy spent 18 months working at the Improvement Service, supporting the work of Heads of Planning Scotland and also working on spatial data improvements for planning authorities. In conjunction with the RTPI, Amy worked on the Future Planners project which explored options for getting more planners into Scotland’s public sector. As of April 2023, Amy now works at East Ayrshire Council in the Development Plans team, and is looking forward to putting her knowledge of the development planning system into practice!

Callum Anderson is a civil engineer with a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering and a Master's in Flood Risk Management from the University of Glasgow. Since joining Kaya Consulting in 2010, he has developed specialist expertise in flood risk management, with a focus on hydraulic and hydrological modelling. Callum has delivered over 250 flood risk assessments across the UK and internationally, supporting a diverse range of clients—from private individuals and local authorities across Scotland and the UK to multinational mining companies in countries such as Ethiopia and Canada. He also brings valuable public sector experience from his time at Glasgow City Council, where he contributed to strategic drainage planning and the development of flood alleviation schemes.

James graduated from the University of Aberdeen in 2013 (MA (Hons) in Geography and Spatial Planning) and is a Chartered Member of the RTPI. James is a Senior Planner with Aberdeenshire Council's Strategic Development Delivery Team, and works primarily on National and Major Energy and Transmission Developments. He has been a member of the SYPN since 2019 and Chaired the Network in 2024.

Pamela is Planning, Building Standards and Environmental Health Manager for West Dunbartonshire Council. She has worked for the Council for over 17 years and previously worked for East Ayrshire Council. Pamela studied Planning at Queens University Belfast. She has a strong interest and is passionate in creating high quality places and buildings. West Dunbartonshire is one of the smallest Councils in Scotland however it is one of the more ambitious Councils and the planning process is being used to assist in changing the prosperity and future prospects of the area by creating high quality places.  

She is responsible for pioneering the Place and Design Panel, the first time a Design Panel has been set up in a more deprived area. She was also responsible for setting up the award winning  elected member briefing at the pre application stage a process that  together with the Place and Design Panel has become embedded in the planning process.   

She is Senior Vice Convenor of Heads of Planning Scotland (HOPS) Executive Committee. She was  pleased to be recognised as a “Women of Influence  - The Planner” in terms of her role in encouraging teams to work collaboratively across local authority, NHS, private sector and local communities and being not afraid to do things differently.

Kevin Murray, BSc DipTP MSc FRTPI AoU FAcSS, is a Glasgow based town planner and urbanist, a Past President of the RTPI, Honorary Professor of Planning at Glasgow and Dundee Universities, and Founding Director and Past Chair of The Academy of Urbanism.

An alumnus of Aberdeen and Oxford Brookes Universities, Kevin is a practising consultant, specialising in strategy, regeneration and stakeholder engagement for clients across the public, private and community sectors.

His practice Kevin Murray Associates (KMA) has won awards and commendations for their work, including around engaging communities creatively in the planning and regeneration of their towns and cities.

As RTPI President in 2000-2001 Kevin was involved in establishing the Young Planner of the Year Award and special President’s Award, the publication of the New Vision for Planning, and the recasting of the Institute’s logos that we have known for a generation.

Kevin has also been the host of the RTPI Awards Ceremony and the AoU Urbanism Awards, on multiple occasions.

Scott joined DPEA as a reporter in 2007, becoming Chief Reporter in 2020. Before that he was a Planning and Building Standards Manager with South Lanarkshire Council.  He has experience in development management, development planning and economic development.

Having worked in the planning industry for a number of years, Maura has a wide ranging knowledge and experience of working with the different sectors across the Scottish Planning System.

Maura hopes to bring her experience in planning consultancy to support the RTPI in Scotland, helping them achieve their aims by encouraging collaborative working both across the many intertwined disciplines and between different sector planners themselves.

Maura is Senior Vice Convenor of RTPI Scotland this year, and will take up the role of RTPI Scotland Convenor in 2026.

Heather is the Director of Design for Architecture and Design Scotland, leading the work of the design advice teams. Heather is an urban designer and planner, with a background in geography. She has over 14 years’ experience of working in the public sector. Previously at Glasgow City Council, Heather has shaped place policy and facilitated urban regeneration, supported creative partnerships within Glasgow’s Canal Corridor and helped grow the internationally recognised Stalled Space initiative. She played a leading role in delivering Glasgow’s greener legacy projects for the 2014 Commonwealth Games and contributed to multiple complex green and blue infrastructure projects in the east end of the city. Heather has played a key role in Glasgow City Council’s involvement in the Lighting Urban Community International Association and has supported creative lighting projects locally.  In 2019, Heather was seconded to Architecture & Design Scotland for 20 months to develop a new ‘carbon conscious places’ service, working with the Scottish Government and local authorities in rural, islands and urban settings. Heather is a non-executive Director of the Board for the Academy of Urbanism, Charity Trustee of the Green Action Trust, an affiliate of the UN Habitat’s Planners for Climate Action, former RTPI UK Young Planner of the Year and titled in the top 50 women of Influence for 2019 and 2020 in ‘the Planner’.

Steve is an Architect with over 20 years of experience in the private and public sectors. At Architecture and Design Scotland Steve helps provide advice and support for public sector-driven investments including healthcare, housing and community as well as public infrastructure investment. Steve previously led our work on town centres and how they can be more supportive environments for our ageing

Inspiration that led Susie into planning was drawn from her city based upbringing, in Liverpool, where she discovered the power of transforming places. Through her Scottish Government (SG) role and background in Civic Design (Masters) she helped to create Designing Places - Scotland’s first design policy statement. She’s been responsible for working with Ministers on policy and advice together with local authorities, house-builders, stakeholders and communities to deliver both urban and rural design outcomes. In doing so, she has worked at all scales of design - spanning from a strategic city region, whilst working for the First Minister’s Champions Group to deliver the Borders railway (£350m investment) corridor, down to the more detailed level of, creatively, improving the ‘feel’ of a town’s streets/spaces.

She has always sought to simplify placemaking. One area of this involved developing the Scottish Government’s Drawing Places workshops which helped planners think more visually about the components of place and masterplans. Alongside this, she has championed young talent and led the Student Design Competition, for all Scottish Universities, spanning 10 years. Plus, after working on the Scottish Awards for Quality in Planning she received a Special Recognition Award. She has also been invited to be a Judge for the RTPI Planning Excellence Awards, RIAS Doolan Award, and Landscape Institute Awards.

Susie is currently leading the National Planning Skills Commitment Plan. This is an industry wide delivery piece supported by over 60 organisations across the professions. Together, they are rolling out a co-ordinated monthly training and recruitment drive for Scotland. 

In addition to her Masters she has a BA (Honours) and achieved a Certificate (First) in Environmental Law (UK and EU) from the University of Strathclyde. She is a Chartered Member of the RTPI and Member of the Academy of Urbanism. Plus, she committed to three secondments including the Bavarian Government (Munich), the Princes Foundation for Built Communities (London) and Scottish Borders Council (Melrose). Out with work, Susie loves all aspects of design. This led her to create her own innovative medical invention, with Strathclyde University students, resulting in winning the top Design Award.

Rowena Statt is an architect, designer, and masterplanner whose innovative work has earned recognition, including awards and commendations from the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI). She is the Research and Development Director at Anderson Bell Christie, an employee-owned practice known for its collaborative and people-focused approach, and she embodies these values in all her  work.

Beyond her professional achievements, Rowena is committed to education and the development of future generations of planners and architects. She has long championed a hands-on approach to design, particularly through drawing and sketching. As a skilled architectural illustrator, Rowena believes that these fundamental techniques are essential for developing design thinking and communication skills. She has worked with the Scottish Government and the Princes Foundation, supporting them to develop and facilitate numerous training events for planners, encouraging them to engage directly with the design process through traditional sketching.

Rowena’s work continues to inspire and empower others, showing that the act of drawing is not just a tool for visualizing ideas but a vital means of fostering creative, sustainable, and inclusive design solutions.

Lynsey is a senior associate in Shepherd and Wedderburn’s Planning and Environment team, and is qualified in both Scotland (2016), and England and Wales (2022).

She has extensive expertise advising on complex planning matters, including application and appeal strategy, EIA and HRA matters, and planning agreements.

Lynsey specialises in the consenting of large-scale energy and infrastructure developments across the UK, and advising on residential developments within Scotland.

Her experience includes:

• Advising on DCO applications for offshore wind and solar projects, carbon capture and storage, and highways schemes;
•  Advising on s.36 applications for a range of renewable energy developments in Scotland, including onshore and offshore wind, and pumped storage hydro;
• Acting for land promoters in statutory appeals against Scottish Ministers’ determination of a planning appeal; and
• Advising housing developers in relation to appeals against the local authority’s refusal of planning for residential development.

Lynsey has been identified as an Associate to Watch by Chambers and Partners and a Leading Associate by Legal 500, and is a member of the Planning and Development Committee of the Scottish Property Federation.

Ashley is a Senior Associate in the firm’s Planning and Environment team who specialises in planning, environmental and public law matters, predominately in the renewable energy and electricity sectors.

She has a particular interest in contentious planning and consenting matters involving inquiries, statutory appeals and judicial review.

In the public law sphere, Ashley has specialist expertise in Scottish parliamentary processes and on the legality and interpretation of legislation - which has included appearing before the Scottish Parliament to give evidence on legislative proposals.

Ashley is a member of the Law Society of Scotland’s Constitutional and Human Rights Sub-Committee and the Scottish Public Law Group.

Ashley is also a Director and Trustee of Home-Start Glasgow South - a charity supporting families across the South of Glasgow.

Rhoda Banfro is a local government solicitor specialising in planning and licensing law at the Highland Council.

After earning her law degree from the University of Aberdeen, Rhoda completed her traineeship with Aberdeenshire Council. She went on to build a career within the public sector, specialising in advising on complex planning matters, including major developments and energy infrastructure projects. She regularly advises Planning Committees and contributes to the development of planning policy within the Council.

Rhoda has also played a significant role in shaping licensing policy. She has been involved in the Council’s responses to national regulatory reforms, including the creation of Highland Council’s policies for sexual entertainment venues.

Her work reflects a strong commitment to effective public sector governance and the legal frameworks that underpin sustainable and community-focused development.

Like Sir Patrick Geddes, Angus Dodds is also originally from Aberdeenshire, but has spent all of his 2 decades as a planner, based in Edinburgh. After almost a decade each working for both a Local Authority and a multi-disciplinary consultancy, Angus set up his own firm ‘Contour Town Planning’ in 2021 and has spent much of his time since helping clients navigate the head-spinning assault course that is Short-term let licensing in Edinburgh. Going freelance has allowed Angus to do walking tours for real during the Edinburgh Fringe. His spoof historical walking tour ‘Editburgh’ was a sell-out show in 2021 and was described by one audience member as “Brilliant. Kept laughing throughout. Learnt nothing, but that’s not the point!”

Elaine Campbell is Operations Manager at City of Edinburgh Council where she oversees the running of Development Management.  Elaine has work across a number of Local Authorities in her career and considers herself very lucky to have such a diverse and interesting role.

Hannah joined the Steering Group in 2021 and currently works as a Consent Strategy Manager with SSE Renewables. She is based in SSE Renewables Perth office and assists with the consenting regime on large-scale renewable energy projects.  She graduated from Heriot Watt University in 2018 with a BSc (Hons) in Urban Planning and Property Development. After graduating, Hannah worked for Savills and gained her RTPI Chartered Membership in September 2020.  Hannah also has experience working within the public sector whist completing two summer placements at Perth & Kinross Council, within the Strategy and Policy team.