Vail Williams expand planning team with two additional senior hires

Property consultants Vail Williams have hired two senior recruits to its ever-expanding planning team. The new senior planners for the Gatwick, Sussex and Surrey regions are Oliver Galliford and Kathryn Banks.

Kathryn is a licenced town planner with more than 14 years of experience working in local planning bodies. Her primary areas of expertise for Vail Williams will include town planning consultancy, providing commercially focused planning advice on developments in a wide range of sectors, pre-application negotiation, drafting, submitting and monitoring planning applications, engagement in strategic planning and local plan representations and pre-application negotiation.

She said: “Having been involved in a variety of roles in the public sector including numerous consultation and engagement exercises for strategic sites to assist in shaping emerging local plans, I intend to use my know how to continue the second-to-none service for which Vail Williams is famed in the private sector.”

Oliver is a professional town planner, with five years of expertise, who will use this knowledge while working at Vail Williams to produce planning statements, appeal statements and supporting materials for development projects. In addition, he will be in charge of marketing locations via the planning system, including the local plan procedure and offering planning guidance to a range of customers.

He said: “I have experience in co-ordinating the delivery of technical evidence including site assessments, green belt reviews, infrastructure delivery plans, sustainability appraisals and sustainable transport assessments – all of which I aim to utilise for the benefit of our clients."

Vail Williams Head of Planning David Ramsay said this about the two new appointments: “We’re pleased to welcome Kathryn and Oliver to the team to support the continued growth of our client base and increased workload. The knowledge and specific skill sets of both Kathryn and Oliver bring to Vail Williams complements the existing team well and will enable us to continue to successfully guide clients through the complexities of the UK planning system and deliver positive outcomes."

Main picture courtesy of Vail Williams

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