New appointments for WYG’s Planning and Environment Team

Press Release 
12 November 2012

New appointments for WYG’s Planning and Environment team

International multi-disciplinary consultancy, WYG is pleased to announce a number of recent appointments and promotions within its Planning & Environment team based at various locations around the UK. 

Matthew Allsopp, Planning & Design Assistant;  Max Plotnek, Principal Planner;  Catherine Phillips, Senior Planner;  Graeme Smart, Principal Ecologist and Martin Brown, Principal Archaeologist, all bring years of experience and significant knowledge to the award-winning consultancy. (Pictured left to right)

Catherine Phillips

Catherine Phillips joins WYG as a Senior Planner based at the Wellington office and will be focusing on residential development for private sector clients in the South West.

Catherine’s previous role was at Roger Tym & Partners in London as a Senior Consultant where she co-ordinated planning applications for retail, residential and mixed-use schemes.

Martin Brown

Martin Brown joins WYG as a Principal Archaeologist and will be based at the Bristol office.  Martin brings a wealth of experience including nine years as an Archaeologist within Defence Infrastructure Organisation and Defence Estates, within the Ministry of Defence (MOD).

He was part of the team that set up “Operation Nightingale”, which gives injured service personnel the opportunity to work on archaeological sites.

Martin said: “I had previously worked with WYG on projects at the MOD and was impressed by the expertise on offer and the integrity that supported it. As a result, joining the company was a relatively straightforward decision to make.”

Max Plotnek

Max Plotnek graduated from Manchester University in 2005 with a masters degree in Town and Country Planning, and spent the following six years working at Savills in its specialist retail planning team in Manchester before relocating to London. His role focused on out-of-town retail development in both food and non-food sectors where his clients included a variety of landlords, developers, investors and retailers, with a focus on asset management advice.

Max joined WYG earlier this year as a Principal Planner and was promoted to Associate in October 2012. 

Matthew Allsopp

Matthew has recently completed his postgraduate MA in Urban Design at Cardiff University, having graduated in 2011 with a 2:1 Honours from the School of City & Regional Planning (now the school of Planning & Geography).

His past work experience includes a variety of projects to enhance the economic competitiveness of Newport and he delivered projects for the 2010 Ryder Cup held in Celtic Manor, on the edge of the city.

Matthew joins WYG as Planning & Design Assistant, based in Southampton.

Graeme Smart

Graeme Smart joins WYG as a Principal Ecologist and will be based at the Newcastle office.  With twelve years’ experience as an ecological consultant, having previously worked as a Senior Ecologist for a multi-disciplinary consultancy in Yorkshire, Graeme has been running his own successful ecological consultancy for the last ten years.

His previous involvement in projects as diverse as Environment Agency flood relief schemes, Highways Authority road schemes, National Grid major infrastructure projects, housing development, and landfill, means he brings a wealth of experience to the company.

Graeme said: “After several years working in a purely ecological consultancy environment, I was looking for an opportunity to be part of a multi-disciplinary team again. Joining WYG was an ideal opportunity to do that, and to work on a wide variety of larger scale projects.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors 

WYG is an established global management and technical consultancy to the built and natural environment that collaborates with clients in over 40 countries to help them realise their corporate and project ambitions.

A top 15 European consultancy and employing more than 1,400 people around the world, WYG has the expertise for every stage of a project’s life-cycle from planning and design to building and completion.

WYG takes enormous pride in the work it does and has been recognised with several prestigious industry awards including: British Expertise International Awards 2011; RoSPA Occupational Health and Safety Gold Medal Award 2011, National Recycling Awards 2011.

For more information, please contact:
Louise Gardner
PR & Communications Executive
T: +44 (0)113 219 2242
E: louise.gardner@wyg.com