Our team comprises urban designers, town planners, architects, economists, spatial scientists, landscape architects, graphic designers, and more.

We help clients and communities to articulate the story of their place, from the past to the present, and towards their desires for the future – culturally, economically, environmentally and spatially. Our visions and narratives create and develop the identities of places which can be used at a strategy level to develop collaboration, encourage investment and help places to flourish.

During the process of developing these stories, we encourage stakeholders and communities to exchange ideas, share perspectives, and grow ambition. Whether public authorities, land-owners, investors, local businesses, hard-to-reach groups, or young people, everyone’s voice must be heard.

The output – a cohesive place vision and narrative – represents a shared intent for place transformation and helps to ensure that complex projects maintain a focus on the long-term ambition and outcomes, whilst inspiring leaders and communities to take action to ensure it is enabled.

We work with senior leaders and government bodies to understand an area’s potential for sustainable growth and resilience. As part of this role, we help to devise and set the strategic vision and direction of a place, defining the parameters for high quality design, infrastructure delivery and environmental protection to ensure long term quality of life and prosperity for communities.

Our methodology involves the synthesis of layers of data and qualitative evidence, including social, ecological, and physical, conditions. From here, we develop projections of population and employment growth, and assess key opportunities and constraints. We test options and identify key spatial strategies.

Following refinement of these with our clients, stakeholders and communities, we develop comprehensive implementation and roll-out plans covering every sector, including environmental protection, economic strategy, tourism, housing, transportation, utilities provision, social infrastructure and services, as well as governance, to ensure enduring and engaging places.

Whether on the scale of a street, neighbourhood or a city, our masterplanning expertise shapes new places where communities will grow and thrive. The plans and development strategies we craft are imaginative, deliverable, and flexible enough to adapt to the changes that will undoubtedly lie ahead. The work we do is inspired by the local context, its history, its identity, and its people.

We measure the success of our masterplans by their capacity to connect people to each other and to nature, as well as in establishing communities that are healthy, resilient, and economically vibrant. This often stems from a story of renewal and adaptation. Seeking to imbue the distinct qualities of a place, we deliver exemplary urban form and spaces for mixed-use schemes to enact new opportunities and ways of living. The public realm and landscape principles are fundamental, and we seek to craft designs that prioritise the streetscape and public experience of dynamic and diverse new places.

To ensure the ambition of our masterplans can be realised, we work hard to respond to economic and commercial contexts, and embed a robust approach to phasing and early delivery.

We provide clear and commercially astute advice to support the whole planning process. From planning strategy development, advising on acquisition, through to all stages of site promotion, plan making, and planning applications, we work with public, private, joint venture and institutional clients to set processes that aid the execution of viable and ambitious development proposals.

We unlock the delivery of sites with a focus on stakeholder engagement as well as leading Infrastructure Delivery Plans. We steer Section 106 negotiations and help guide phasing, financial flows and legal structures to establish a positive platform for delivery and long-term legacy.

Our team of MRTPI and RICS accredited planners bring extensive experience, working across all scales from strategic regional planning, complex mixed-use urban quarters, education and innovation campuses, urban extensions, and new communities.

We work with city leaders, governments, developers, and place-based partnerships to help set the level of ambition and strategic direction for places at all scales. It is the genuine integration of our economic strategy, appraisal, case making and economic forecasting with the spatial dimension of our work that we term ‘Place Economics’. This gives us a unique perspective and blend of skills to support distinctive place making.

We pride ourselves in robust analysis of economic and socio-economic data which we present spatially to promote meaningful dialogue with clients and stakeholders. We target our analysis to where we can make a useful addition to the collective understanding of the place, rather than adopting a standard blanket approach. We use digital tools and interactive modelling to visualise data in a compelling way which ensures that we can bring insight to our projects.  We specialise in strategies for growth and establishing economic projections at city, regional, or local authority level across the whole economy, and in deep dives on specific clusters and industrial sectors. We use our analysis to support clients to determine future priorities and interventions in collaborative workshops.

Having reached a shared understanding of the strategic priorities and potential interventions, we set out clear delivery and implementation plans alongside our recommended approach to securing funding to enable our clients to turn ideas into reality. We often advise on governance based on our understanding of best practice in the UK and globally. This element of our work is an interdisciplinary approach with the wider expertise of the Prior + Partners team.

Collaboration and dialogue underpin our approach. We know that the places we value and enjoy most are those that have been shaped by an active exchange of ideas between the communities and stakeholders we are designing with. We help to give a voice to local advocates and champions that so often seed the long-term stewardship and legacy of our projects.

People can be wary from years of being overlooked or ignored, whilst interests and concerns are often varied and sometimes competing. To improve the experience, we’ve developed a toolbox of techniques and approaches which help inform and evolve our plans and visions. Through these we build trust and galvanise action amongst communities and stakeholders, as we collectively work towards an outcome that authentically responds to their needs and aspirations.

Embarking on this collective journey allows us to draw out rich and diverse perspectives and integrate this into our thinking at every level. From here, we can progress tangible actions that can be taken now and over the coming years to create real opportunities for the places and communities in which we work.

We bring a digital approach to planning and design. Whether for local authorities, regional entities or development partners, our spatial analytics and research capabilities allows us to bring together a robust evidence base to help inform and enrich our solutions to contemporary urban challenges.

We map and analyse spatial, demographic, and socioeconomic datasets, enabling an understanding of trends and patterns across the regional, citywide, and local scales. We can then take this information and deliver clear, user-friendly, and dynamic digital platforms for clients to help them understand and evidence the complexity of their places. Throughout this work, we prioritise analytics that aid in understanding the needs and function of communities both now and in the future.

Our sophisticated interactive modelling and big data tools also allow us to quickly explore a range of design solutions, test maximum quantum of development, density, as well as perform advanced analysis such as pedestrian flow, urban network analysis, and extensive environmental studies. This combined with our masterplanning and planning expertise helps to unlock the opportunities that lead to a more sustainable future.