People
We build teams to fit our clients needs, from our Partners and from:
Richard Turkington
Director
BA (Hons), PGCE, PhD
Richard is an established social and housing researcher with over 25 years’ experience delivering research projects for clients throughout the housing sector. He established the Housing Vision Consultancy eight years ago to combine advanced research skills with policy formulation and practical application. His specialisms include housing market and neighbourhood sustainability and assessment; identifying the housing mix and affordability options arising from housing and regeneration schemes. He has extensive community-based master planning experience and regularly provides a specialist housing input.
Richard is an Honorary Research Fellow in Housing at De Montfort University and an Associate of the Asian-based Ashram Agency in Birmingham. Richard has active links with researchers throughout Europe; he is joint co-ordinator of the European Network for Housing Research’s working group on Housing Market Dynamics and has been actively involved in researching the trajectory of large scale housing estates for over 15 years. He has extensive RSL Board membership experience, from early involvement with Castle Vale Community Housing Association to over 10 years as Chair of Housing Services and Development at the West Midlands-based Mercian Housing Association.
Sheila Camp
Associate
MA
Sheila Camp has been working successfully as a freelance housing consultant for eight years. She is an experienced researcher, specialising in housing policy-related areas. As well as working with Housing Vision Consultancy, her more recent clients include Housing Quality Network, Unison Open College/Sheffield Hallam University, De Montfort University, the Local Government Information Unit, and the University of Westminster.
Prior to establishing herself as a freelance consultant, Sheila worked for the London Housing Unit for four years as a senior policy officer, specialising in housing capital finance. She was a Senior Lecturer in Housing for five years at the University of Westminster and, before that, worked as a Policy Officer for the (then) National Federation of Housing Associations. She also has five years experience managing housing cooperative and has been chair of housing in an inner London borough.
With the Housing Vision Consultancy, she has recently specialised in summarising the strategic and policy context for housing market analysis work, together with researching the views of property agents on their local housing market. She has also run focus groups and carried out consumer interviews on a variety of housing-related topics.
John Connell
Asssociate
BSc, Dip Pub., MBA
John Connell has over 15 year’s management experience in housing including 10 years in various commercial roles at the National Housing Federation. In July 2004 John joined the London Borough of Hackney as a consultant Project Manager to work on their project to ‘improve access of local residents to LCHO’. As part of a team of two, John has been with this project since its inception in 2004 to its launch in 2008 and has been involved with: commissioning research, stakeholder consultation, developing and securing approval of policy changes, developing and modelling Communities and Local Government and Housing Corporation endorsed local affordability and value-for-money criteria, securing capital and revenue funding for a national pilot for a Hackney Equity Loans programme.
With the Housing Vision Consultancy, John is specialising in strategy and policy analysis work, research and various scenario and client-based interactive computer modelling of research and analysis.
Sarah Hopkins
Associate
BA (Hons), MA
Sarah Hopkins has been working in the housing sector since 1998 mainly in policy, strategy and performance improvement roles. She has held a number of senior management positions including three years at Herefordshire Housing and most recently as interim Strategy and Research Manager at Sandwell Borough Council. During her career, she has been responsible for housing strategy, housing advice and homelessness, performance management, policy and research development and tenant / resident involvement services. Sarah has ten years experience working as both trustee and volunteer in the homelessness sector.
Since establishing herself as a freelance housing consultant in 2004, Sarah has supported numerous local authorities and RSLs in developing their strategic approach to housing through service evaluations, health checks, options appraisals and performance improvement planning. She has extensive experience of conducting customer and stakeholder consultations, focus groups and workshops, and has led presentations at a number of national policy events focusing on homelessness, housing advice and the strategic housing function. Sarah joined Housing Vision in 2009 and will be contributing to projects with policy, research and strategic components.
Ros Lishman
Associate
BSc (Hons)
Ros Lishman’s main contribution to Housing Vision is to the support the business development and management work. She also provides an invaluable proofing and editing service for the consultancy.
Since 1997 Ros has also been based at the Centre for Comparative Housing Research at De Montfort University, Leicester, where she divides her time equally between research/consultancy, teaching and support services. She has been most active in the Centre’s research work on choice-based lettings; and more recently has started to work on projects on the New Policy Making Framework and Performance Management. Ros has experience of developing, undertaking and analysing questionnaires for a range of clients.
Ros is a geographer by background and also teaches geographical aspects of housing, including the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for public policy-making. In addition, she takes the lead on e-learning initiatives and providing study skills support to students in the Centre. Ros is also the Deputy Course Leader for the MSc Business for Housing which incoporates a Postgraduate Certificate in Housing Strategy and Business.
Frank Mason
Associate
BA, PGCE
Frank has worked for Housing Vision for three years, delivering Housing Market Assessments which are tailored to meet clients’ individual needs. He was for many years a teacher and then an advisory teacher. In addition to his HVC work he currently acts as an educational consultant for Worcestershire County Council, specifically as the liaison between Children’s Services and the new joint use university/civic library being built in Worcester.
He is also an experienced CAB adviser working on a wide range of issues, including housing.
Stephanie Sanderson
Associate
BSocSc, PGDip, MCIH
Stephanie Sanderson is a freelance consultant working in housing policy, strategy and research. Since setting up as a consultant based in North Yorkshire, she has worked on a number of housing market projects with HVC for local authorities, including Bromsgrove and Kettering, and more localised market research and affordability projection projects in Doncaster and NewcastleGateshead.
Formerly Head of Corporate Strategy at Midland Heart, the Midlands’ largest housing association, Stephanie has ten years’ employment experience in housing, seven in strategic roles at Birmingham City Council and Midland Heart, and three in housing management.
Stephanie has significant local authority housing strategy development and preferred partnering arrangements experience, and has contributed to several large scale research projects, including housing market studies, an impact assessment toolkit project for non-housing activities and the West Midlands Regional Housing Strategy. She also led the pre- and post-merger corporate planning and strategy development processes during the formation of Midland Heart, including establishing the Group’s research programme, along with review and measurement mechanisms.
Chris Watson
Associate
BA
Chris has more than thirty years’ experience of research, teaching and consultancy in housing, urban policy and international urban development. He was Director of the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of Birmingham from 1987 to 1992, and is currently an Honorary Senior Lecturer in CURS, working especially with graduate research and mid-career students from many parts of the world.
Chris was Chair of Mercian Housing Association from 1999 to 2005 and Chair of Mercian’s Housing Services Committee from 1993 to 1999. He has been a Board Member of FRC Group Liverpool since 2002. He is a member of the Asia-Pacific Network for Housing Research and the European Network for Housing Research, and is a co-ordinator of the ENHR Working Group on Housing in Developing Countries.
Chris is Company Secretary of the Housing Vision Consultancy.
Rachel Wright
Associate
BSc, MSocSc
Rachel Wright is a self employed Research and Geographical Information Analyst based in Cheshire. Rachel joined Housing Vision in 2009 and will be leading on the GIS function and contributing to projects requiring advanced data analysis.
Rachel has more than twenty years’ experience as a Social Researcher working in the fields of Housing, Crime, Employment, Social Care and Regeneration. She has eight years’ experience working as a local authority Research Officer in Housing and Social Services for Dudley MBC and in a wider Corporate Policy role at Blackpool, and eight years of experience of working as a Research Officer at a large Housing Association in the Midlands (Prime Focus).
Rachel has six years’ recent Geographical Information System experience. She set up a Geographical Information System for the largest Housing Association in the Midlands (Prime Focus, now Midlands Heart) using MapInfo software. The system was capable of analysing housing data from a live database of more than 16,000 properties spread over 29 local authorities.
More recently Rachel worked for Blackpool Council providing a GIS service for the Corporate Policy and Communications team using the local authority designed GGP systems software. She also developed skills in analysing small area data using interactive mapping with Instant Atlas software from Geowise. Recently Rachel took part in a joint pilot Local Information system project with Blackpool Council and Blackpool PCT producing interactive mapping on teenage conceptions and smoking cessation data. Another recent project was to provide an early analysis of geodemograhic data for Blackpool using MOSAIC household data from Experian.
Rachel has considerable experience of survey design and analysis working on large-scale tenant satisfaction surveys including STATUS for Prime Focus, and monitoring the progress of offenders through employment training programmes at the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders. She also designed the Wrens Nest Estate Based Neighbourhood Development Survey for Dudley MBC in partnership with other agencies. Rachel has used SPSS and similar software for analysing these surveys. In addition to her experience of quantitative research, Rachel has designed topic guides and analysed qualitative data from Focus groups and analysed qualitative data from tenant surveys.
Rachel’s project management experience includes a Housing Needs Survey (Dudley MBC), a Special Needs Housing Survey (Dudley MBC) and a MORI Tenants Household interview survey (Prime Focus) plus Focus Groups (Prime Focus).
Page last updated: 12.06.09