Charles is Partner-in-Charge of Collaborative Planning with communities and stakeholders from all backgrounds and sectors. He leads JTP’s dedicated community planning team, managing and facilitating co-design processes around the UK and internationally that combine both in-person and online activities to ensure that everyone is able to participate.
Charles is currently working with St William, part of the Berkeley Group, to create a Vision for the residential-led, mixed use regeneration at Beckton Gasworks on the River Thames in London, formerly Europe’s largest gasworks. He is also leading the stakeholder and community engagement process for Berinsfield Garden Village, Oxfordshire with Ptarmigan Land and working with Guildford Borough Council on Weyside Urban Village, including establishing a Community Review Panel to evaluate the proposals as part of a National Model Design Code pilot.
In 2021, Charles led JTP’s digital stakeholder and community engagement process through the Covid-19 pandemic for Lancaster City Council. The co-created landscape-led masterplan for Bailrigg Garden Village subsequently won the Landscape Institute Award for Masterplanning and Urban Design in 2022. Through this work and building relationships with Lancaster University Environment Centre, Charles became a founding member of the Soils Task Force which promotes the protection and sustainable use of soils in planning and construction.
In 2019, Charles was asked to lead the Vision for Liskeard Cattle Market Charrette for Cornwall Council, sponsored by MHCLG as part of their exemplar Charrette initiative, with Phase 1 of the masterplan, The Workshed, a creative and digital hub now completed. He also also led The Nicholson Quarter community planning process for Areli Real Estate to create a new Vision for Maidenhead town centre – a project which won the Stakeholder Engagement category at the Planning Awards 2022. Also that year, he led the Vision for Kendal whole town Charrette for Kendal Futures, which has recently won £13.5 million in Levelling Up Funding, as well as the Vision for Tampere West+ city centre Vision e-charrette for Tampere City Council, Finland.
Important in Charles’ development has been his work as a local resident with the Barnes Town Team running two co-design processes – The Big Barnes Ponder in 2013 and Barnes Ponder 2 in 2023. These events and subsequent community-led activities have delivered a range of projects and helped to bring about the renaissance of Barnes, more than doubling footfall in the village and bringing back real vibrancy to the village on the river.
Other JTP projects included the acclaimed stakeholder and community engagement process for the Central Winchester Regeneration project for Winchester City Council, developing a Supplementary Planning Document for this important city centre site which has now been formally adopted by the council. He also led the Community Planning Weekend processes at Market Street, a new residential-led ‘urban village’ on a council-owned car park in Newbury town centre for Grainger plc; the award-winning regeneration of St Clement’s Hospital in Bow, including London’s first Community Land Trust; the high-rise, residential-led urban quarter at Brunel Street Works, part of London’s Custom House and Canning Town Regeneration Area; and urban extensions at Attleborough and Hethersett in Norfolk; Chesterton in Cirencester, and Land at Three Elms in Hereford.
Internationally, Charles has co-led a cooperative regional planning Charrette in Auroville, India; community Charrettes as part of the Scottish Government’s Charrette mainstreaming programme in Girvan, Wick and Thurso; several Charrette processes in Sweden, and an international multi-disciplinary team through three Charrette processes to plan an eco-resort in Tanjung Ringitt, Indonesia.
Charles’ book entitled ’20/20 Visions: Collaborative Planning and Placemaking’, published by RIBA Publishing was a finalist in the Urban Design Group Book Award 2019. In 2009, he travelled to San Diego to accept the International Association of Public Participation Project of the Year Award 2009 for Scarborough Renaissance.
Charles is an Academician of the Academy of Urbanism and a Design Council Expert (Specialist). He has lectured at various universities and spoken at a range of international conferences and seminars including The Academy of Urbanism Quality Life, Beautiful City conference in Hangzhou March 2018, The American Institute of Architects Conference in San Diego in 2018, and the Remaking Cities Congress in Pittsburgh 2013. He has contributed to various publications, including drafting ‘Collaborative Planning for All’, published by Civic Voice in 2015.
