The ODA Planning Committee

Mike Appleton

Mike Appleton has 30 years experience in regional/urban policy implementation and project delivery. This includes: roles in central Government, public agencies, being a director of a major construction/development group, and management consulting. Mike is a director of Cibitas, a special-purpose regeneration company. A current major involvement is a masterplan-led scheme adjacent to the 2002 Commonwealth Games stadium.

Mike has wide experience of the UK planning system from taking complex projects through to consent as a developer and through operating the statutory planning powers of the Commission for the New Towns/English Partnerships. Non-executive board roles have included, deputy chair of a housing action trust, a non-departmental public body, and three urban regeneration companies and public/private joint ventures. Mike was a working group member of the Urban Task Force and is a former member of the Housing Board for London.




Celia Carrington

Celia Carrington is Deputy Chief Executive and Group Director, Environment and Leisure at Swindon Borough Council. She is responsible for overseeing Swindon's long-term growth and the regeneration of the town centre. Her span of control includes planning, transport, economic development, leisure and culture, and environment and health. Prior to joining the local government world in September 2003, Celia worked for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in the Government Office for the South West, where she held a number of different posts including, Director for Local Government, Housing and Planning; Director of Corporate Services; Decisions Officer on behalf of the Secretary of State for major planning appeals and called in applications; and was involved in the setting up of the Bristol Development Corporation. Celia began her civil service career in the diplomatic service and spent five years in a range of posts including a two-year posting to Venezuela.




Dru Vesty

Dru Vesty is a fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute and has held senior roles in the public then private sectors. She is a board member of the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation and Tower Homes. She has been a director of a public/private partnership company and before that was Director of Property Development with British Gas plc, where she reviewed its UK property asset management system and set up a property development operation to regenerate its portfolio of contaminated sites.
At the London Docklands Development Corporation in 1981-1991 she established its development control and development framework systems and was responsible for the regeneration strategy and £270m advance infrastructure programme for the Royal Docks.




Janice Morphet

Janice Morphet has over 35 years experience in local and central government in a number of roles including as a planner, director of technical services and as a local authority chief executive in London and elsewhere. She has also been a central government senior adviser on local government modernisation and e-government, where she led on partnership working. Throughout her professional career Janice has served on a variety of professional committees including a Joseph Rowntree inquiry into housing. Janice has also spent time as an academic, as a professorial head of a planning school and chair of the Conference of the Heads of Planning Schools. She is currently Visiting Professor of Planning at the Bartlett School of Planning at University College London. Janice has recently become a director of rmjm consulting where she is engaged on a variety of projects for the public and private sectors.




William Hodgson

William Hodgson is an architect based in Hackney. He was elected to the London Borough of Hackney from 2002-2006, where he chaired the Planning Sub-committee and was the borough's Design Champion. He worked for a range of architects, including Jestico + Whiles and Ahrends Burton Koralek, before setting up his own practice. He teaches at the Bartlett School of the Built Environment at University College London, is an examiner for the Architects Registration Board and is a trustee of the Shoreditch Town Hall Trust.

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