Kay has 18 years of experience working on many facets of sustainable development planning and urban regeneration. Working as a Programme Manager for the Olympic Delivery Authority for the duration of the regeneration programme, she gained an in-depth insight into how a scheme is governed and delivered in partnership with a complex array of stakeholders and technical teams. As a Chartered Geographer her work has a strong focus on the applied use of geographic data and spatial research to inform masterplans, policies and urban design strategies. Her approach is to incorporate evidence-driven, human-centred and environmentally responsive planning and design considerations that ultimately deliver health and wellbeing for inhabitants. She recently co-authored ‘The Multi-Sensory Experience in Buildings, in Clements-Croome, D., (Editor). Creating the Productive Workplace (2018)’ and is collaborating with academic partners on how research into urban health and wellbeing can be translated into practice.

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Qualifications

BSc Geography | MSc Environmental Monitoring, Modelling & Management | MSc Urban Design in Development

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Affiliations

CGeog (GIS)  |  FRGS   | AFHEA  |  RTPI Affiliate Member  |  Urban Design Group Member

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Key Skills

Spatial Analysis: Kay is an expert applied user of geospatial technology, using its analytical capabilities to undertake numerous environmental and socio-economic baseline studies. She has a vast knowledge of a wide range of datasets and uses her knowledge of urban design, health and wellbeing and urban resilience to undertake the necessary spatial research and data analysis to gain local-level insights that inform policy, spatial strategies and intervention options. Kay has used geospatial analysis to model walkable neighbourhoods; overlay analysis to look at locations for sustainable urban expansion; and geospatial statistical analysis to look at geographic distribution of socio-economic indices. In a previous role Kay was instrumental to the development of the Social Infrastructure Framework – an analytical toolkit to assess the supply and demand requirements for social infrastructure as a result of urban growth.

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Stakeholder Engagement: Kay has used her strong research skills to undertake thorough stakeholder analyses as part of understanding project governance and for developing tailored engagement strategies.  She has run numerous engagement events with local communities, using a variety of different methods and highly visual, mixed-media tools to capture feedback as well as to co-produce spatial designs. For example, walking interviews; neighbourhood walks and mapping exercises; social media campaigns; online mapping and collaboration tools; cultural props to extract local stories and narratives; visual meeting minutes; sensory walks; co-design workshops. Kay has a knack for extracting local knowledge and developing strategic recommendations to enable communities to mobilise and articulate their needs into actionable project goals. Kay has also supported events with schools, such as nature clubs and neighbourhood visioning, linking place-making with curriculum themes.

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Strategic Planning and Design: Kay has worked as part of multi-disciplinary teams on various strategic baseline assessments, masterplanning and urban renewal strategies. Kay has a sound knowledge of the legislative and policy context as well as the research context which is assessing the impact of urban design on human health. With a strong network of academic research links she is actively collaborating and advocating for the better integration of health and wellbeing research into urban design considerations and as an evidence-driver for integrated planning policy to tackle the wider determinants of health and sustainable climate adaptation. Kay has recently worked on developing neighbourhood plans working closely with local communities to convert their aspirations into strategic aims and objectives and planning policies.

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Programme Management: Kay’s strategic thinking skills and work on major programmes has led her to gain an in-depth knowledge of the different aspects and phases of a major works schemes. She has developed processes and procedures to govern how projects are framed and managed in order to achieve implementation success. She has experience converting requirements into business cases, tender packages as well as detailed action plans and has extensive experience in articulating, developing and managing projects of various sizes.