Dame Fiona Reynolds DBE, director general, National Trust

Dame Fiona Reynolds DBE has been Director-General of the National Trust since January 2001. Before taking up the post she was Director of the Women’s Unit in the Cabinet Office and was previously Director of the Council for the Protection of Rural England (now Campaign to Protect Rural England) and Secretary to the Council for National Parks.  Fiona was awarded the CBE for services to the environment and conservation in 1998, and was appointed a DBE in 2008. She is a Green Alliance trustee.

Tony Travers, visiting professor, London School of Economics

Tony Travers is director of LSE London, a research centre at the London School of Economics. He is also a visiting professor in the LSE’s Government Department. His key research interests include local and regional government and public service reform. He is currently an advisor to the House of Commons Children, Schools and Families Select Committee and the Communities and Local Government Select Committee. He has published a number of books on cities and government, including Failure in British Government The Politics of the Poll Tax (with David Butler and Andrew Adonis), Paying for Health, Education and Housing How does the Centre Pull the Purse Strings (with Howard Glennerster and John Hills) and The Politics of London: Governing the Ungovernable City.

Simon Marsh, acting head of sustainable development, RSPB

At the RSPB, Simon leads a team which seeks to change public policy to help tackle the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change. Simon is a chartered town planner and is a member of Greg Clark’s practitioners’ advisory group, which prepared a proposed draft of the National Planning Policy Framework. He is also a member of the Department of Communities and Local Government's Planning Sounding Board. Until recently Simon was the RSPB’s Head of Planning and Regional Policy. He chaired the Greenest Planning Ever coalition and the Land Use Planning Working Group of Wildlife and Countryside Link, an umbrella body for voluntary organisations. Before moving to the RSPB 7 years ago, Simon spent most of his career as a planning officer at Sefton Council, Merseyside, and Essex County Council, with a two-year break advising the Government of Mozambique.

Faye Scott, senior policy advisor, Green Alliance

Faye is Green Alliance’s expert on the localism agenda and planning reform. In February 2011 she initiated the national conversation on what these new agendas will mean for the environment, organising the UK’s first major conference on sustainability, localism and the Big Society (Green Alliance annual conference 2011). Faye also has expertise on the challenge of mainstreaming climate change action across civil society, and works on ensuring that smart-meter roll-out delivers for the environment. Prior to joining Green Alliance in 2007, Faye worked for the Environment Trust, a social enterprise working with communities in east London. She has also been a research co-ordinator at Involve, a public participation think tank, a project co-ordinator at The Environment Council and a member of the policy and corporate strategy unit in Defra.

Alex Thomson, chief executive, Localis

Alex has more than a decade's experience as a policy maker both in government and in opposition. Prior to joining Localis in August 2010, Alex was the Conservative Party's specialist policy adviser for decentralisation and local government, leading on the development of the Party's policies on local government, housing and planning, and responsible for writing the Party’s green papers ‘Control Shift’, ‘Strong Foundations’ and ‘Open Source Planning’. Alex has also worked in central government for various departments including DCLG and Defra, and was part of Boris Johnson’s successful Mayoral campaign team.

(chair) Peter Hetherington, Society Guardian and Town & Country Planning Association

Peter Hetheringon, former regional affairs and northern editor of The Guardian, writes regularly for Society Guardian on local government, housing and  regeneration. He chaired the Town and Country Planning Association-serviced cross-party Connecting England Commission, continues to help lead work in this area  arguing for a more balance economy across England -  and is a member of the TCPA's board of trustees and policy council.