Consultancy gears up for growth by assembling top town planning team
Manchester is to host one of the largest specialist town planning consultancy teams in the North West.
Following the acquisition this year of specialist town planning consultancy Indigo Planning, WSP, the engineering and professional services consultancy, is further strengthening the position of its planning and advisory business in the region with the growth of its environmental assessment, management and town planning team (EAM&TP) in Manchester.
The Indigo team of 19, currently based at St James’s Tower on Charlotte Street, will move to WSP’s No.8 First Street office in the city centre on September 30.
They will join more than 30 town planning and environmental consultants at WSP to create one of the largest specialist town planning teams in the North West.
Doug Hann, executive director at WSP | Indigo, said: “We’re delighted to be moving under one roof with our WSP colleagues.
“We’ve built a strong reputation here in the North West over the last 20 years and this marks a new chapter which will enable the team to expand its service to clients, combining our commercial planning expertise with WSP’s public sector and infrastructure experience.
“Our focus will remain serving our commercial developer, housebuilder, landowner and operator clients, who will continue to benefit from our detailed local knowledge in the North West, supported by the world-class expertise of WSP.”
David Hoare, associate director in the EAM&TP team at WSP in Manchester, said: “The Northern Powerhouse agenda is propelling forward the transformation of our towns and cities in the region and we can offer a whole range of services for those early stages of planning and project lifecycle which will help future-proof them for generations.
“The expansion of our team puts WSP in a strong position to offer our planning expertise for a number of growth sectors.
“These include unlocking funds for major infrastructure projects – with more than 65 transport projects to be completed in the next five years as set out in the Greater Manchester Transport Strategy 2040, and helping to accelerate housing delivery in the region to help meet Greater Manchester’s target of delivering 50,000 new affordable homes a year.”
The amalgamation of the teams will strengthen the service offering, combining WSP’s transport and infrastructure expertise, having provided specialist planning services for a number of major projects in the region including Network Rail’s Northern Hub rail programme and the multimillion-pound Stockport Interchange, with Indigo’s strong track record in the commercial, house building and retail sectors.
The town planning team sits within the planning arm of the business, which is headed up in the UK by Darren Oldham and Gareth Howells who are based in the Manchester office.
The Manchester team works closely with more than 100 town planning experts across WSP nationwide and is supported by more than 1,200 environmental, sustainability land referencing, acquisition and stakeholder engagement specialists.
