Fern Consulting - Year 3

The (definitely now) traditional annual round up of my Fern Consulting year has, albeit a bit belatedly, arrived! If you want to know more, read on!

2023 was another exciting year for Fern and me, with further growth in clients, alongside a deepening of a number of ongoing successful partnerships - notably with Heathrow Airport, Heathrow Strategic Planning Group and Royal Borough of Kingston.

First up - the free stuff

A key benefit of working for yourself is the opportunity to flex your time to allow for interesting volunteer and pro-bono work. Some key causes I've given my time to summarised below.

Transport Planning Society

This was the year that I handed over my chairship of the Transport Planning Society (TPS) after two years in the top seat. TPS is an incredible organisation, with an impact on policy and practice that is disproportionate to its size - a testament to the hard work of countless volunteers who make their time and expertise available in order to give something back to the sector. It's also a great bunch of people who are genuinely fun to collaborate with. I can't deny it wasn't a bit emotional handing over the reins, but in truth I was delighted to convince industry legend Ben Plowden to take over, and equally pleased to get Kieran Seale in as our new company secretary. I remain on the board for another three years (having been re-elected by members) and am enjoying getting stuck into some project work big and small as a bonafide "wise hand" no less.

Foundation for Integrated Transport and Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE)

As my time commitment with TPS reduced, I was delighted to be able to help out Stephen Joseph and my colleague Trustees at the ongoing successful story that is the Foundation of Integrated Transport (FIT) a bit more.? FIT is a truly unique organization that is doing huge good in supporting projects that break down barriers to sustainable transport uptake. I also continue to enjoy chairing the ICE's Transport & Mobility Community Advisory Board - some excellent work being undertaken to progress carbon reduction, nature positive development and embedding the sustainable development goals in infrastructure delivery. Looking forward to getting stuck back in to this work in 2024.

Magistracy

Away from transport, after a looooooong application process I also finally got sworn in as a magistrate on the south west London bench. I've always had a volunteer "project" in my life (having previously been a special constable and a chair of governors) but had put this on hold when my second kid - who was a stranger to the world of sleep - came along. Great to be able to give back again and in a way which is both immediately rewarding and offers endless insight into parts of our society that I would never normally see.

Raheli Trust and the One Percent Scheme

As per this recent post, I also got to head out with incredible Raheli Trust, chaired by Sue Percy , to Tanzania in January, to visit the work they are doing in supporting disadvantaged kids into secondary and further education. This follows the support for the Trust provided by the One Percent Scheme for which I am also a trustee. Hugely inspirational and eye opening stuff - really recommend anyone who is able to afford charitable giving consider supporting this work. With thanks to Lynda Addison for giving me the opportunity.

Now, to business...Key Projects in 2023

So, with all that nice stuff going on its a reasonable question to ask as to whether I did any paid work. Luckily for my hungry and growing children (and my fellow director, the long suffering Emma Frost ) the answer to that is yes, and indeed 2023 marked a particularly busy year for the company. Some notable events below.

Heathrow Area Transport Forum

It was a sad moment to say goodbye to the inspirational Valerie Shawcross CBE. who stood down from her role as Independent Chair of Heathrow Area Transport Forum (HATF) in the summer after nearly four years hard graft. It's been an honour to be able to support her in running this effective scrutiny body over the last few years. Taking over the reins is long term board member, and retiring CEO of Transport Focus, Anthony Smith . After his barnstorming start as compere at the HATF conference in November, very much looking forward to an exciting 2024 holding Sophie Chapman , Tim Leech and the excellent Heathrow surface access team to account (in a friendly and constructive way of course...) You can see a summary of what the board got up to in 2023 here, and our forward plan here. ?

Heathrow Strategic Planning Group

My wider work with Michael Thornton and Kevin Lloyd (and many others) on the Heathrow Strategic Planning Group (HSPG) continues to go from strength to strength as passengers return and thoughts again turn to development and growth - and mitigating the negative impacts of that on local communities.?

Some key projects include:

• Further consensus building on Southern Rail Access with Stephen Bennett and his team at Arup, closely working with Heathrow Southern Rail team. Feels like momentum continues to build behind this scheme as a growing number of stakeholders recognise the transformative impact it could have on transport, environment and economic growth of the sub-region.
• Benefitting hugely from the support of Laurence Oakes-Ash 's City Science , HSPG were successful?in a bid to Innovate UK's Net Zero Pathfinder Places programme allowing us to undertake a rapid review of decarbonisation opportunities and challenges for the sub-region in the summer. Another successful follow up bid to Innovate confirmed in the Autumn will release additional funding in February of this year for further exploration into the use of planning function to deliver decarbonisation; developing a more integrated approach to transport planning across the GLA boundary; the development of pilot Local Carbon Offset Market projects and; how best to develop a Sustainable Aviation Fuel from local waste streams proof of concept. Huge pleasure working with Ajit Bansal and Marcel Steward at Hounslow and Runnymede councils respectively on this one.
• It was also a delight to start engaging again with European partners through the inspirational Airport Regions Council , who are doing great work flying the flag for local communities in developing new regulations and ways of working that minimize negative externalities of the aviation sector. Looking forward to more collaborative work with Sergio Alegre Calero and colleagues in 2024.

University of Westminster and PTRC

At the kind invitation of Enrica Papa I continued my assault on the impressionable minds of the younger generation with a guest lecture slot at University of Westminster on reflections from a decade and a half working at the fault line between transport and planning. It's also an ongoing pleasure to lead the transport legislation and funding evening lecture for PTRC as part of their essential Principles of Transport lecture series. Building on this work, and that around skills as part of TPS, I was also invited by Tom Cohen to contribute as an external expert for the internal revalidation of Westminster's Transport Planning MSc - I was hugely impressed at the rigour of this process and the professionalism of all those involved in bringing it to a successful conclusion.

Royal Borough of Kingston

It's been a pleasure to work with a number of departments at the Royal Borough of Kingston (notably Matt Hill , Duncan Brown and Tim Naylor and teams) over a number of years now, supporting their work to improve transport and regeneration outcomes in the town centre. Having convened a workshop to explore a prioritized strategic transport and public realm strategy in June with Kingston First (the local Business Improvement District), we then followed up with a strategic transport workshop for the borough with other key stakeholders including Network Rail, TfL and neighbouring boroughs. I'm delighted to be leading a key project coming out of this, with City Science and Civic Engineers , namely to continue high level feasibility around a transformative potential reorganisation of bus routes in the town centre to improve the quality of the public realm, and road safety.? It's inspiring to see the?ambition to improve transport and placemaking outcomes -? with the added bonus of satisfaction of working in my own backyard.

Urban Design Learning

2023 also marked the year that I joined the Urban Design Learning team more formally, and am now convening much of their transport planning and street management programme. Esther Kurland has built a genuine centre of excellence in this space - inspiring stuff, and certainly pushes me to keep abreast of where the state of the art is in our sector. More information about our current and forthcoming event programme available here: Home - Urban Design Learning

Placemaking London

Early on in the year it was great to work with Placemaking London on another public realm strategy for an iconic central London thoroughfare, this time Kings Rd in Chelsea. Dan Johnson has built a particularly effective team specializing in improving public realm and environmental sustainability in the most high profile of contexts, and in association with Business Improvement Districts in particular.

Strategic Advisor Roles

On top of the these key projects, I have also been lucky enough to continue to keep a healthy roster of strategic advisor roles, including with Agathe de Canson and the London Councils Low Carbon Transport Programme; Sam Margolis , Lucy Broadway and Chris Cole at the London Technical Advisors Group Strategic Transport Forum and; the Crane Valley Community Interest Company. I love being able to drop into these diverse initiatives as required and hopefully add some useful value. It helps that everyone engaged is also great company :-)

Conclusion

Sadly, no summary of my last year would be complete without acknowledging the sad loss of my inspirational mum in October after a very rapid decline in her health over a difficult eight months. I think most people would say that this isn't the platform for heartfelt sharing of personal grief, so I will limit this to just saying thank you to all those work colleagues and contacts who sent unprompted condolences and messages of support at that difficult time. It really helped.

So that's a wrap on 2023. Another year, some more learnings of what works and what doesn't in the still new world to me of private practice.? What's in store for 2024? On the basis that if it isn't broke....I suspect largely more of the same - with perhaps half on eye of opportunities to build a bit more of a network of associates to support larger, more transformational commissions. And of course there's always the prospect of potentially adding a couple of staff to further support Emma and I across our growing order book of transport, regeneration and economic development projects...that feels like a big step but one that isn't wholly unexciting, let's see!

Oh, I guess I should mention the tenuously Fern related picture... This shows a fern tree being swamped by rising water levels in Lake Tanganyika, that I was lucky enough to visit in January with the Raheli Trust. The reasons for this are mysterious, but consensus seems to be that this is largely linked to heavier rains, deforestation and sedimentation in connecting rivers linked to intensive agriculture. Bit of proper geography for me to get stuck into...More on the impact this is having here if you're interested: Thousands in Burundi Affected by the Rising Waters of Lake Tanganyika - Burundi | ReliefWeb

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