Cumbrian born media presenter and author John Grundy is a champion of Northern architectural heritage being best known for raising its profile through his impressive boy of work for radio and television.

Born in Carlisle, John trained to be a teacher at Neville’s Cross College, Durham. He is married with three grown up children has lived in the same house in Newcastle since 1970 while teaching English for almost 40 years in Gateshead and at South Tyneside College.

He considers himself lucky to have done a whole pile of things to do with history and architecture, giving up teaching for a few years in the ‘80s to work on the Re-survey of Listed Buildings for English Heritage. John moved on to co-present the ground breaking Townscape series for BBC North East television, worked on Take a Place Like …. , The Heritage Show and the Arts Show for BBC Radio, and then produced ten series of programmes for Tyne Tees Television: Grundy Goes, Grundy’s Wonders and Grundy’s Northern Pride. He now contributes regularly to BBC North East’s Look North and writes regularly for local magazines such as The Northumbrian.

John is proud to have been co-writer for the second edition of the Northumberland Volume of Niklaus Pevsner’s, The Buildings of England, followed by his Northern Pride about Northern architecture, published in 2004.

See Wiki entry at LINK

Jo Evans IHBC is the Chair of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation and is a historic buildings specialist working for two local authorities as well as numerous and wide-ranging private clients. She was in local government conservation for 12 years at Brighton and Guildford but left in 2000 when her second child was born. She was on the committee of the IHBC’s South East branch for many years, first as the treasurer and latterly as the branch's membership secretary. Jo has served as the IHBC’s Chair since 2010.

David McDonald IHBC is the IHBC’s Education Secretary and is also Chair of the IHBC London Branch. Until recently he led the Conservation and Design Team at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. A graduate of geography and geology before qualifying as a Town Planner and then completing the AA Diploma in Building Conservation whilst working at the London Borough of Camden. He is currently an independent historic environment consultant, specialising in providing heritage training for other built environment professionals. See Linked in entry at LINK

Mike Brown, IHBC is a Chartered Building Surveyor with over 20 years’ experience of the repair and refurbishment and successful change management of historic buildings and places, both as a practitioner and conservation officer. A consultant heritage and urban design advisor, he is the IHBC's Policy Secretary.

Nick Randell has been with the Heritage Lottery Fund since 1998 and involved in delivering targeted heritage skills grant initiatives for the last nine years. Nick is the programme manager for the Skills for the Future and Training Bursaries grants programmes, together delivering over 3000 work-based training placements across the UK with £60m of Lottery investment.

Rory Cullen is Head of Buildings at the National Trust, a post he has held for ten years. This national role involves writing policies and guidance on building conservation issues and overseeing the training and development of over a hundred Building Surveyors and a hundred and fifty skilled Direct Labour craftsmen, to ensure the highest conservation standards are maintained and shared. It also involves frequent external liaison with Government bodies, conservation organisations and the general public. He has an MSc in Building Conservation, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Buildings (CIOB), a Full Member of the IHBC and a qualified Assessor for high level Conservation NVQs as well as for the CIOB. See Linkedin entry at LINK

Alan Gardner is a Chartered Building Surveyor, accredited in conservation, and a SPAB Lethaby Scholar, who specializes in the repair of historic buildings. Alan has worked for English Heritage and was Technical Secretary for the SPAB for four years prior to setting up his own private practice. He continues to be a member of a number of professional technical advisory groups and associations and is in demand as a speaker and practical trainer to a wide variety of audiences on historic building related topics. He remains totally committed to the full integration of training and access, particularly during repair contracts, to historic buildings. See Linkedin entry at LINK

Colin Haylock is an Architect-Planner with over 35 years’ experience spanning the public and private sectors. He ran a large multi-disciplinary Environmental Design and Conservation Team for Newcastle City Council and managed specialist conservation services for the 5 Tyne and Wear Districts before becoming Urban Design Director for a major architectural practice. He was heavily involved with the work of CABE throughout its life and continues this engagement with Design Council CABE. He is now running an independent specialist consultancy and is a visiting lecturer at UCL and Newcastle University. He is an Expert Panel member with Places Matter! and Northern Architecture and an awards assessor for Civic Trust, RICS and Constructing Excellence and has been appointed member of the London Mayor’s Design Advisory Group advising Boris Johnson through to April 2016. He was a founding member of the RTPI’s Urban Design Network and RTPI President in 2012. See Linkedin entry at LINK

Jules Brown has worked on a wide range of historic environment projects across the north of England, developing enviable experience in coordinating and delivering conservation plans, management strategies, character appraisals, feasibility studies and funding bids for a spectrum of heritage sites, from medieval remains to twentieth century listed buildings. He regularly co-ordinates or is part of multi-disciplinary teams delivering high quality, goal-oriented and collaborative work.

Jules is particularly interested in opportunities for conservation areas to act as positive catalysts for economic and social regeneration, inspiring local people to become interested and proud of their local heritage. He has conceived and delivered pioneering work in the field of community engagement in heritage-led regeneration, and is at ease working with a range of stakeholders. Jules is also skilled at graphics work, bringing to life complex planning and historic environment issues for lay audiences.
Key projects include: major conservation plans, such as those for the 1970s Byker housing estate, Newcastle upon Tyne, and the seventeenth century Kirkleatham estate, Redcar; seven successful THI bids in the north east; and more recently, facilitating one of the first pilot Neighbourhood Plan front-runners, at North Shields’ Fish Quay Conservation Area.

In 2010-11, Jules was seconded part-time to English Heritage as Historic Areas Advisor in the north east, working as part of the regional team to deliver its statutory and proactive work. He has lectured in Informed Conservation at Newcastle University for several years and regularly speaks at conferences on historic environment issues. Jules is a past Secretary of the IHBC North Branch and currently sits on the Victorian Society’s Northern Buildings Committee.

Phil Bell, Employer Account Manager, National Apprenticeship Service (NAS), has been with NAS since the Project Team was set up in 2009 and prior to that worked for the Learning and Skills Council and Training and Enterprise Council managing Work Based Learning contracts with employers and training providers in Cumbria. His current role focuses on working with and guiding employers who are considering their first apprentice through to those employers with established apprentice strategies to ensure they receive the impartial support and information to maximise the benefits that Apprenticeships can offer both employer and employee. Phil is truly passionate about Apprenticeships as they can change lives.

James Hepher is the surveyor for the Scottish Ten Project: Historic Scotland and the Centre for Digital Documentation and Visualisation’s ambitious mission to digitally document in 3D ten World Heritage Sites in five years. Sites that include The Heart of Neolithic Orkney, The Sydney Opera House, Edinburgh’s Old and New Town and Mount Rushmore. A graduate of the University of Glasgow’s Archaeology, Geology and Surveying departments, James spent 7 years working for the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland surveying everything from Bronze Age burial mounds to World War Two bunkers before joining Historic Scotland’s laser scanning team.

David Lovie is a past president of the IHBC and continues to contribute to the work of the institute as the chair of the Disciplinary Committee and a membership assessor. He runs his own business as a heritage writer and consultant and works three days per week as a church support officer in the Diocese of Newcastle. David currently volunteers in a variety of roles at both national and local levels, including the IHBC and at St Nicholas Cathedral, Newcastle and Alnwick Civic Society.