Skip to main content

Conference Image

Meet the Advisory Group

The Advisory Group is formed of senior professionals from across the UK public estate. Their expertise ensures the Congress remains focused, relevant, and impactful. Together, they help shape a programme that addresses real sector priorities.

 

View the 2025 Conference Programme        Meet the 2025 Speakers

 Alan Smedley

Alan Smedley

National Frameworks Director - Morgan Sindall Construction
Andrew Dutton

Andrew Dutton

UK Account Director, Schools, Trusts and Local Government Education - Arcadis

Andrew leads our UK offering to Schools, Trusts and Local Government Education clients. He has been supporting Education sector clients with developing and enhancing their estates for 20 years, with experience across Universities, Schools and Diocesan Portfolio Holder Clients as well as Multi Academy Trusts. His primary focus is around delivering large volumes of refurbishment and extension schemes, capital condition projects and strategic property related advice. Andrew has held key roles in supporting the Department for Education, particularly relating to condition strategy and led the Technical mobilisation of the Condition Data Collection Programme.

Angela Brockbank

Angela Brockbank

Angela is the Affordable Homes Sector Director for Galliford Try, a Tier 1 Construction company, with a national role to develop GT’s re-entry into this key market.  This involves building up relationships with partners in the sector including Housing Associations and Local Authorities, along with key government stakeholders such as Homes England. 

Galliford Try has a proud track record of construction in the residential sector, working for clients across the country, with a focus on high-density, urban living developments.

Angela has over 20 years’ public sector experience delivering regeneration and affordable housing schemes in the north east and is a Board Member of Women in Social Housing (WISH) North East.

Dr Steven Norris

Dr Steven Norris

Dr Steven Norris (BA Hons, MPhil, PhD, MRTPI) is an Executive Director at Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH) and national head of the multi-disciplinary Planning, Regeneration + Infrastructure (PR+I) business comprising over 150 advisers based out of London and the regional hub offices in Bristol, Exeter, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Chelmsford.

Steve has over 32 years’ experience advising the public and private sectors on the planning, regeneration and transformation of Britain’s towns, high streets and shopping centres.  Examples of the diverse centres and places where Steve and his team have prepared evidence-based visions and regeneration strategies, underpinned by wide-ranging consultation and stakeholder engagement, include: Dartford, Hastings, Hitchin, Basingstoke, Camberley, Winchester, Walsall, Hull, Southampton, Great Yarmouth, Hitchin, Nottingham, Dalston, Ealing, Bexley, Greenwich, Basildon, Rugby, Fareham, Nuneaton and Newmarket. 

Since 2020 Steve and his team have also helped unlock c.£500m of Government-backed funds to kick-start critical regeneration and infrastructure projects in several centres, including Grays, Corby, Stafford and Tilbury.  This has included the delivery of a new 6th Form College in a long-term vacant building in the heart of Corby town centre and the development of a new youth centre in Tilbury.

Steve sits on Revo’s strategic board and was an Expert Adviser to the Government's High Street Task Force for five years up to the dissolution of the programme in 2024.  He is also an active member and supporter of the Association of Town & City Management (ATCM); ACES, New London Architecture (NLA) and Reading Real Estate Foundation (RREF).  Steve regularly presents at conferences, seminars and workshops on town centre and high street regeneration, revitalisation and repurposing.

Julian Robinson

Julian Robinson

Director of Estates - London School of Economics and Political Science

Julian is Director of Estates at the London School of Economics, responsible for the delivery of all capital development, facilities and property management. He has delivered many high profile projects including the RIBA London Building of the Year 2014, when the LSE was also named AJ100 Client of the Year.

Holding post graduate qualifications in Town Planning and Surveying, most of his working life spent as a client side project manager. He was a CABE Enabler and is Chair of the Higher Education Design Quality Forum (HEDQF). In September 2016, Julian was made an Honorary Fellow of the RIBA and appointed to the National panel for Civic Trust Awards in 2017.

 Mike Lea

Mike Lea

Head of Planning - Capital Directorate - Department for Education

Mike joined the Department for Education in 2016 after a spell in local government and 10 years in private sector planning consultancy, including as a Director in the Planning and Development Team at Jones Lang LaSalle. Mike leads an in-house team of 14 planning professionals within the Capital Directorate of the DfE, working across Operational and Forward Planning. The team operates on a regional basis across the two main school delivery programmes (Free Schools and PSBP), and alongside the likes of MHCLG and Homes England on a range of strategic planning initiatives to secure allocations, land and/or funding for schools.

Richard Hipkiss

Richard Hipkiss

Development Director -Modular and Portable Building Association

With an engineering background before moving into the construction industry in early 2000, the impact of the fusion of manufacturing and construction comes as no surprise. Richard has been a Director of the MPBA for 3 years, setting up the Learning Hub to close the knowledge gap across the industry and help develop a solution for possible skills shortages in the future. 

Richard O'Connell

Richard O'Connell

Richard O’Connell is an Executive Director at Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH) and national operations director for our Planning, Regeneration + Infrastructure (PR+I) business comprising over 150 advisers based out of London and the regional hub offices in Bristol, Exeter, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Chelmsford. He is also Head of Office in Chelmsford.

Richard has over 25 years’ experience of working for, or on behalf of public sector clients and has advised several local authorities and other public sector bodies on disposal and estate strategies linked to complex property portfolios.  He has been involved in a number of portfolio transformation programmes in the context of asset rationalisation, repurposing and income generation opportunities. He is the lead Director for several of LSH’s key Public Sector contracts including Essex County Council, Surrey County Council, LB Camden and HS2.

Join us on 11 June 2026 to optimise estate management, reduce carbon footprints and align with the government’s net-zero targets.

 

Register your interest

Strapline

Congress Partners