Chris Bowden is the founding director of Navigus Planning. An Associate Member of the RTPI, he has twenty years’ experience, having previously worked for three of the leading planning consultancies in the UK, during which time he built up the core skills offered by Navigus Planning.
Chris specialises in working with community groups, including town and parish councils, providing technical support and assistance on all planning matters, most notably in relation to Neighbourhood Planning. He has enhanced his own experience of community planning through his active membership of several community action groups. This gives him a unique combination of skills – an understanding of the strategic context coupled with experience of how this context is applied in practice at the local level, the ‘coalface’.
Chris is also an expert on the relationship between deliverability and planning, having presented at the Planning Advisory Service’s series of workshops for local authority planners, and on the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), having developed CIL charging schedules for numerous district councils. He has a particular skillset in planning for infrastructure, having prepared numerous Infrastructure Delivery Plans for local authorities, much of which is linked to the wider CIL preparation. He has also led on the development of key infrastructure and deliverability strategies for major schemes at Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea (VNEB) and North Chelmsford.
Chris is a Design Council Built Environment Expert (BEE) and a planning panel member for Civic Voice.