Planning & development

Nick is a chartered town planner and development surveyor with over 25 years' experience, gained across the residential, commercial, retail and industrial sectors for corporate, institutional and private landowners and developers. He has worked at CBRE and Drivers Jonas Deloitte. His professional experience is in three main sectors – Strategic Land / Projects, Retail / Mixed-Use and Central London. Strategic Projects / Land involves the promotion of land for commercial and residential development for landowners and developers. Retail / Mixed-Use schemes are a blend of edge of centre and town centre mixed-use schemes with food stores and other uses, often residential. This sector includes regeneration and waterside schemes. Central London focuses on projects from Canary Wharf to Hammersmith and Camden down to Wandsworth, Southwark and Lambeth.

When he isn’t working, Nick can be found playing golf (increasingly badly) and spending time re-stocking and emptying his wine cellar to indulge his passion for wine.

James is Chairman of Carter Jonas.  Formerly Head of the Planning & Development Division, James advises clients on proposed development projects throughout the south of England with nearly 30 years of experience in residential and mixed use development.  This includes site identification, project management of planning and development strategies, valuation and viability appraisals, marketing and sale of development opportunities. He has specific expertise in option, promotion and other development agreements, joint ventures and landowner equalisation agreements. James has been involved in sites ranging from new settlements to city centre regeneration and smaller provincial and rural schemes, and also provides expert witness and independent expert valuation services for dispute resolution.

Jon leads the Carter Jonas London development team, providing strategic development advice, feasibility and viability studies, acquisition, disposal and marketing advice and advice on structuring and procuring development partnerships. He has 30 years’ experience, working initially in local government and then in consultancy at Donaldsons, Knight Frank and GL Hearn.

• Working on the Great West Quarter from the bid stage in 2003 through to the development’s completion in 2015
• Securing permission for the first One Planet Living development in Brighton
• Getting my head around quirky planning issues

Katy is a chartered planning and development surveyor with extensive experience working with private sector clients across London and the South East. Katy joined Planning Perspectives in 2002 before moving across to Carter Jonas with the rest of the team at the end of 2014. Katy advises on various forms of development but is particularly proficient advising on major residentially-led, mixed-use developments.  Her work ranges from providing quick pre-acquisition advice through to managing complex project teams through the planning process and beyond to implementation.  A significant proportion of her work involves adding value to redundant employment sites through complex Section 106 negotiations, transforming such sites into exciting new destinations.

Steven is Partner and Head of Planning Southern Region and is based in our Oxford office.

Colin is a Partner and was appointed Head of Planning & Development Division in November 2020, he is based out of our Cambridge office.  He has over 25 years’ experience of planning consultancy and has a broad sphere of work.  He acts for a wide range of private, institutional and developer clients and has worked on significant planning applications and appeals.

He regularly instructs Counsel, and has appeared at a number of Local Plan examinations and in Section 78 and other appeals where he has often given evidence.  He carries out much land promotion work and has a strong track record of delivering planning consents taking projects through their entire process from site identification to construction on site.  

Away from work, Colin is Chairman of the Cambridge Forum for the Construction Industry and of the Cambridge branch of networking group, Interact.  He is also Chairman of the Dining Rights Committee at the Hawks’ Club, a sporting club in the City for Cambridge University sportsmen. He is a regular, if poor golfer, a keen cyclist and a committed, but somewhat less dangerous skier than he once was.

Sarah Cox is a skilled and experienced chartered town planner with over 20 years’ experience. She has experience in managing the planning process on residential, mixed-use, commercial and leisure developments in a variety of locations on behalf of a diverse client base including developers, investment funds, social housing provider landowners and public companies.

John is Head of the Leeds office and the Planning & Development Team North. John advises clients on proposed development projects throughout the North of England.  He has over 30 years’ experience in residential and commercial development acting for private, corporate, institutional, charity and public sector clients.

This includes site identification, project management of planning and development strategies, valuation and viability appraisals, marketing and sale of development opportunities.

John has specific expertise in Options, Promotional Agreements, Joint Ventures and Conditional Contracts, acting mainly for landowners.  John has been involved in projects such as new settlements, to city centre regeneration, provincial sites, large commercial developments and site sales.

The Development Agency team are currently instructed on 6,500 acres in 150 locations across the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.

Robert is based in our London head office and heads up the national development team. He has over 20 years of experience as a developer and consultant advising private, corporate and public sector bodies on how to extract value from strategic property assets.

Johnny Clayton joined Carter Jonas in July 2018 to head up the Masterplanning and Urban Design practice across the UK. Johnny is a Masterplanner and Urban Designer, with a broad skills base and over 16 years of project experience encompassing conceptual design, masterplanning, urban design, detailed design and project implementation. His particular specialism and passion is for strategic land projects including new settlements, but also urban mixed-use regeneration schemes. Johnny is also a Chartered Landscape Architect since 2008.

Johnny is inspired to create new sustainable communities and places through a well-considered, innovative and forward thinking process of design, with a strong respect for history and place. He is highly focused on pursuing pioneering design solutions and techniques to improve the sustainable credentials of new developments.

Further to his work at Carter Jonas, Johnny is CEO of YEP Global, an events organisation with Chapters throughout the UK and overseas. YEP has over 5,000 members and holds over 50 events per year, focused upon the property and construction industries.