Rosemarie MacQueen is Strategic Director of the Built Environment at Westminster City Council London UK. Her departmental portfolio encompasses one of the largest and busiest planning departments in the United Kingdom. She is responsible for planning, development and transportation policy, economic development and regeneration; urban design and conservation; public realm improvement as well as development management, planning enforcement and building control. Rosemarie has advised Central Government and other agencies on behalf of Westminster City Council via her membership of many stakeholder groups and working parties and also in Select Committees of Parliament. She also lectures on a wide variety of planning, regeneration and design topics and is an external examiner on postgraduate courses. She is a previous Chair of IHBC London Region, a member of the RTPI’s Built Environment panel, a member of the Planning Officers’ Society’s Development Management Panel and also of its Design and Delivery panel.

Beryl Lott is Historic Environment Manager and County Archaeologist for Lincolnshire County Council. She has worked in archaeology for over twenty years with a specialism and post-graduate qualifications in historic buildings. Previous posts include advising on Vernacular Buildings for the National Trust and her current post includes historic building advice as well as managing a large historic environment team whose remit includes maintaining the County Historic Environment Record (HER) and providing archaeological planning advice to a number of planning authorities. She is a steering member of HLF projects which aim to raise awareness of heritage at risk and increase awareness of historic and natural landscapes in local communities. She is chair of East Midlands Association of Local Government Archaeological Officers (ALGAO), secretary to ALGAO Historic Buildings Committee and a member of the Policy Committee of IHBC.

Richard Craig is both a planner and urban designer by background, and has worked in local authorities in Central London for the past 20 years. He is currently involved in the design of strategic sites in Kensington and Chelsea, but takes time out to run the Royal Borough’s design review panel. The panel is in its third year of operation.

Mike Harlow is the Legal Director for English Heritage and first qualified as an engineer before converting to the law and working in the City for 15 years as a solicitor advising on built environment matters. In 2007 Mike left his partnership in Winward Fearon to join English Heritage in the role of Legal Director. Since then he has been very heavily involved in the implementation of the reforms to the system of protection of the historic environment, particularly in the drafting of the Heritage Protection Bill and the new PPS for the historic
environment. He has also been involved in key casework for English Heritage, like the Elizabeth House tall buildings inquiry in London and the proposed new shopping centre in the City of Lancaster.

Bob Stagg is a civil and structural engineer who has a keen interest in existing buildings, particularly historic ones. After graduation he worked in the structural engineer’s office in a local authority where he was involved with new-build design and the regeneration of many existing council properties. He then moved to the private sector, continuing and extending his involvement with appraisal, repair and refurbishment of existing buildings of all types and ages ranging from the historic such as the Royal Albert Hall through to the high rise estates of the 1960/70s, including Ronan Point. Bob has lectured for the Institution of Structural Engineers and been co-author for two of their publications relevant to existing buildings.

Alec Forshaw is a conservation consultant and author who worked in Local Government for 35 years and was Conservation Officer with the London Borough of Islington for 21 years. He is now a trustee with the Churches Conservation Trust, and is passionate about the re-use of historic buildings. He lectures widely on conservation and urban design issues. He has written extensively on London, including Smithfield Past and Present, The Square Mile, Open Spaces, Markets of London, Twentieth-Century Islington, and is currently working on a book about 1970s London, due to be published in 2011.

Dr Ian Dungavell is Director of the Victorian Society, the national charity campaigning for the Victorian and Edwardian historic environment, which has been running a campaign to highlight the fact that Victorian and Edwardian swimming pools are an endangered species. In 2006 the Society organised Making a Splash, a national conference for all those campaigning for historic pools which helped establish a network of pool campaigners. In 2008 he swam in every listed Victorian or Edwardian public baths in England one lap for each year it had been open – a total of 1543 laps or just over 22 miles, slightly more than a Channel swim – ‘making him,’ as Building Design put it, ‘the David Walliams of the heritage world’.

Chris Sumner is an architect and garden historian and is Chairman of the London Parks and Gardens Trust which organises the annual Open Garden Squares Weekend. They have also compiled the London Inventory of historic green spaces comprising histories and descriptions of about 2,500 parks, gardens, cemeteries and other sites across Greater London. From 1986 to 2007 he was an Inspector and Parks and Gardens Adviser in the London Region of English Heritage, and from 1973 to 1986 worked for the Historic Buildings Division of the Greater London Council.