Welcome to my website and thanks for your interest. After graduating from the Universities of Oxford and Wales, I spent over 45 years in planning, design and development consultancy for new towns and urban, industrial and regional infrastructure. I have worked for some of the largest built environment consultancies in UK, the USA and Australia and lived and worked in a wide range of countries throughout all 6 continents. This has involved working with clients and project colleagues of many nationalities, languages, and political viewpoints, as well as personal characters and humours. Understanding their personal as well as business agendas has always been the primary route to achieving meaningful connections.

I write in a variety of genres. Following a series of professional journal publications, for example, in Middle East Economic Digest, I wrote An Urban Profile of the Middle East published in 1979 by Croom Helm. They were taken over by Routledge/ Taylor & Francis who published it again in 2016. The book was academic in style addressing exactly what it says on the cover.

In 2017 I wrote Journeys with Open Eyes, Seeking Empathy with Strangers, a travelogue and biography of the projects and people with whom I have interacted across multiple working and domestic cultures worldwide. This is partly serious commentary on trends in urban development, but also anecdotal about bizarre situations – some mundane, others hilarious and a few even life threatening – encountered through a long and varied career.

Most recently, my third book, Fractured Society – Causes, Effects and Resolutions was published in 2020 as a socio-political review of current trends in society, including how we might correct some of the dysfunctions that have inserted themselves into the human psyche since the start of the digital age.

Despite the diversity of styles, the common denominator between these books is a strong internationalist perspective. I believe that many of the world’s problems are expressed from a national interest perspective. Only when this approach diminishes will we start finding lasting solutions. After all, looked at dispassionately, a flag is just a piece of cloth…..

Under the banner HR Strategic Advisory, I continue to consult on urban projects with many of my former, full-time professional colleagues both in the UK and internationally. I live in London with my wife Sylvie. We have two adult children, Mark and Shân and, to date, two granddaughters Lola and Manon. I contribute extensively to conferences and events of the Urban Land Institute and am currently a Director of the Society of Authors. The SoA help to promote the interests of authors, the wider writing community and the publishing sector.