Dr Hugh Ellis has just been elected to a Fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences, the national academy of academics, practitioners and learned societies in the social sciences. He is an alumnus of USP having got a first in his undergraduate degree (1992), then a PhD (1995), and was awarded the Chancellor’s Medal for service to the University community.
Since leaving the University he has worked for environmental and planning NGOs. His dominant focus has been how the planning system can effectively meet the major challenges of poverty, inequality (including regional inequality), climate change and demographic growth. His work has been done at a time of major challenges to the legitimacy of planning, the latter seen by neoliberals as a barrier to new jobs and housing, whereas he has mounted strong arguments that good planning actually promotes desirable outcomes in terms of equity and economic efficiency.
His first NGO role was at Friends of the Earth leading its work on how spatial planning could enhance sustainable development. He critically led FoE’s work on the passage of legislation through Parliament, especially liaising with Ministers, their officials, MPs and Peers when promoting amendments to draft Bills.
In 2009 he moved to the Town & Country Planning Association (TCPA), the key promoter of planning ideas outside the chartered professional body, i.e. the RTPI. He was TCPA’s Chief Planner providing high-level policy engagement on a wide range of TCPA priorities. The role involved research projects and public affairs and working with DCLG, DEFRA and DECC on a wide range of mitigation and adaptation issues, including chairing the Department of Energy and Climate Change community energy working group.
Perhaps his most important contribution to planning was his role in the Raynsford Review of English Planning. This is without doubt the most important review of planning since the statutory system was established in 1947. He led all the research and all the consultations and wrote the draft and final reports. It is a tour de force, with an intellectual depth that is lacking in other similar reports from lobby and trade bodies. The report addresses some very fundamental questions about the nature and future of planning.