Speakers Profiles

Andrew Carter

Andrew Carter is an experienced Conservative Councillor with a distinguished record on Leeds City Council. He has served on all the major committees of Council in over thirty years of public service and currently serves on Leeds City Council's Executive Board as Development Portfolio Holder.

First elected to Pudsey Borough Council in 1970. Elected to Leeds City Council in 1974, and re-elected in 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004.

Andrew Carter served as Deputy Lord Mayor of Leeds in 1995/1996 and has been Leader of the Conservative Party on Leeds City Council since 1983. Andrew Carter has held a number of high profile posts within the Conservative Party and is currently Chairman of the Pudsey Parliamentary Constituency.

Andrew Carter has recently retired as Managing Director for a Yorkshire Manufacturing Company.

Andrew Carter was a Director of the Leeds Development Corporation between 1988 – 1995 set up by the Conservative Government and along with his colleagues was responsible for laying the foundations and creating the conditions for the economic development and success of the City of Leeds.

Andrew is a keen member of Yorkshire County Cricket Club. He enjoys gardening and watching Rugby League.

Jean Dent

Jean Dent is the Director of City Development at Leeds City Council.

City Development brings together all the Council’s physical, economic directorate, cultural and recreational activities, including asset management, design services, economic and business development, highways, libraries, arts & heritage, planning, recreation and sport.

The directorate seeks to provide fully integrated services and its aims are to develop Leeds into one of the most prosperous, vibrant, attractive and sustainable cities in Europe.

Jean is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. She has spent all her working life at Leeds City Council and worked in many fields of property development, regeneration and economic development before being appointed Director of Development and now most recently Director of City Development.

She has played a very active role in the physical development and regeneration of the city working on a number of major schemes, which have helped transform the city. She is a member of RICS Regeneration Panel, the Steering Group of the Leeds Property Forum and is a Director of Marketing Leeds.

In her role as Director of City Development, Jean has responsibility for a wide range of development, regeneration, cultural and recreation activities in the city; ensuring economic growth and investment; as well as encouraging good quality urban design and ensuring that that the people of Leeds are able to benefit from the success, prosperity and quality of life this brings to the City.

Sir Terry Farrell

Sir Terry Farrell is one of the world's foremost architects and urban designers with offices in London, Edinburgh and Hong Kong. Farrell's imagination has been shaped and inspired by the many cities which he has lived in, visited and worked. He has initiated and completed numerous high profile building schemes and masterplans in diverse cities worldwide.

Terry Farrell was born in Sale, Greater Manchester but moved to Newcastle as a child. He studied architecture at Newcastle University (1956-1961) and then won a Harkness Fellowship to study Masters courses in Architecture and City Planning at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, USA (1962-1964).

Wayne Hemingway

Wayne Hemingway was born in 1961 in the seaside town of Morecambe. After spending most of his childhood in Blackburn, the young and multicultural Hemingway left school with 10 O’Levels and 4 A’Levels. In 1979 he went on to undertake a rather “ inappropriate” move for a future fashion designer by gaining a Degree in Geography and Town Planning at University College, London.

The move that sealed Wayne’s fate was taken to fuel funds for the band that he then played in. One day he decided to empty his wardrobe and that of his childhood sweetheart (now wife Gerardine) and took the contents to sell on Camden Market. The realization that money could be made from fashion suddenly dawned.

With Gerardine, Wayne built Red or Dead into a label that received global, and after 21 consecutive seasons on the catwalk at London Fashion Week, Wayne and Gerardine sold Red or Dead in a multi million cash sale.

In 1999, they set up HemingwayDesign, which specializes in affordable and social design. The highest profile project is The Staiths South Bank, a 800 property mass market housing project on Tyneside for George Wimpey Homes where Hemingwaydesign are involved from the master planning, the architecture through to the landscaping and marketing of this groundbreaking project.

HemingwayDesign’s other projects have included the highly acclaimed new club for the Institute of Directors on Pall Mall,IOD at 123, consultancies, The 4 Walls range of wall coverings for Graham and Brown, “Wet” , a tile range for British Ceramic Tiles and product design (current + recent clients include Sky Plus, Wanadoo, Boddingtons, Sony, The Royal Mail and The Caravan Club).

Wayne is the Chairman of Building for Life, a CABE funded organization that promotes excellence in the quality of design of new housing.

He got an MBE in June 06 Queens Birthday List, is a Professor in The Built Environment Department of Northumbria University and a Doctor of Design at Wolverhampton.

He is a writer for architectural and housing publications as well as a judge of international design competitions including the regeneration of Byker in Newcastle and Salford in Greater Manchester and the Stirling Prize, Europan and a TV design commentator.

Gary Lawrence

Gary Lawrence is an internationally recognized expert on urban strategies and sustainable development. He provides thought leadership for strategic urban development throughout Arup’s global offices. Gary has more than 20 years of experience assisting public sector, private sector and non-governmental organizations with research, analysis, strategic planning and implementation toward the integration of sustainable development concepts

A significant milestone in Gary’s career was his leadership of “Toward A Sustainable Seattle”, the first sustainability-focused municipal comprehensive plan in the world. This project was name by Time Magazine as the most important public policy initiative of 1993.

International recognition of his work means that Gary is frequently an invited speaker and lecturer on topics related to sustainable development, urban planning and metropolitan strategies. These speeches and publications have formed the basis for the development of much of the current thinking on sustainable development and he is acknowledged by the former UN Secretary General of Habitat as having authored “the single most important contribution to the entire Habitat II process.”

Gary’s senior advisory roles include service with the Clinton Administration’s Council on Sustainable Development, the US Delegation to Habitat II, the Global Environment Center, the US Agency for International Development, the Brazilian President’s Office, the British Prime Minister’s Office, the European Academy for the Urban Environment, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Mike Sharp

Michael Sharp is an Architect and Urban Designer with Gillespies. He has an exhaustive spread of projects across the environmental spectrum, but has expertise and experience in the conception to delivery of area based regeneration strategies, and the re-birth of the public realm. Michael has worked on a variety of city and town centre public realm projects across the UK.

Michael helped the Gillespies team to compile the Urban Design Compendium for Sheffield and was partner responsible for the architectural and urban design issues surrounding the remodelling of Gateway rail stations at Salford and Chester.

He is a member of the Yorkshire Forward RMT panel and the Tees Valley Regeneration Panel for Urban design and Architecture where he is leading a design coding exercise with CABE and ONE for a major town centre site in Darlington.

John Thorp

John Thorp has played a key role in rethinking the role of public space in the regeneration of our towns and cities. Major projects completed since his appointment as Leeds Civic Architect in 1996 include the redevelopment and restoration of City Square, the Henry Moore Gallery and Millennium Square, a unique outdoor events arena widely recognised as one of Europe’s most impressive civic spaces.

John has also been responsible for leading the development of the renaissance framework for Leeds, a city-wide approach to regeneration which puts 'place making' at the very centre of urban design and development. Designed to ensure the city of Leeds retains a distinctive sense of place, the renaissance framework focuses on developing and enhancing the city's unique skyline; preserving and reinvigorating natural and historic assets such as the waterfront, the city's green spaces and Victorian shopping arcades; the importance of connectivity and public space in generating a coherence sense of place; and on reconnecting disadvantaged communities on the rim of the city to Leeds' expanding and prosperous core.

John is a member of Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment design review panel and is currently serving as a member of the 2012 Olympics design review team. In 2003 he was named ‘Architect of the Year’ at the prestigious Yorkshire Property Awards and in 2005 was awarded an MBE for services to architecture and regeneration.