Barker Parry Town Planning is strengthening its senior team and increasing its capacity for further growth as Katie Smith joins the business as a Director.
Katie joins Managing Director Liz Fitzgerald as KS Town Planning and Barker Parry come together, bringing additional senior planning expertise and a well-established client base into the Hitchin-based consultancy.
The move marks the latest stage in the growth of Barker Parry, which was established by Gae Parry and Steven Barker in 1992 and will celebrate its 35th anniversary next year.
For Liz and Katie, however, the story goes back almost as far as their own planning careers.
They first worked together at Stevenage Borough Council in 2004, early in their careers as planners, before following separate paths through local government and subsequently into private practice.
Liz joined Barker Parry in 2017 and became Managing Director in 2022, overseeing a period of continued growth for the business. Katie spent 20 years working for local authorities across Hertfordshire and Essex before moving into the private sector and establishing KS Town Planning.
More recently, Katie worked alongside Barker Parry on a project and quickly found that the two businesses shared a similar approach to planning and client relationships.
Liz said: “Katie joining us is an important next step for Barker Parry. We have ambitious plans for the business, but growth has to be built on the same principles that have been at the heart of Barker Parry since Gae and Steven established it.
“We believe in being straightforward with clients about the opportunities and the risks. Sometimes that means telling someone that what they want to achieve isn’t realistic, rather than allowing them to spend considerable time and money pursuing something that is unlikely to succeed.
“Katie shares that approach and, having known her for more than 20 years and worked with her previously, there is already a huge amount of trust between us.”
The move gives Barker Parry additional senior resource as it looks to continue growing its team and the scale and range of projects it can support.
It also gives existing KS Town Planning clients access to the experience and resources of the wider Barker Parry team, while retaining their relationship with Katie.
Katie said: “My business has grown rapidly over the past few years, supported by an incredibly loyal client base and recommendations from clients and professional contacts. I had reached the point where I needed to increase the capacity around me.
“Having worked with Barker Parry, I knew I had found a team that shared the same values. We both believe in giving clients honest, practical advice and thinking strategically about the best way to move a project forward.
“For my existing clients, that means the way I work isn’t changing. What I now have is a wider team around me, with additional knowledge, experience and capacity to support their projects.”
Both Liz and Katie bring extensive local authority as well as private sector experience to Barker Parry. That background gives them first-hand understanding of how planning decisions are made and the different considerations facing planning officers, elected members, developers and communities.
Their approach is to use that experience to identify potential problems early, manage risk and develop a planning strategy that considers the wider commercial objectives of a project, rather than viewing planning permission in isolation.
Katie added: “Good planning advice needs to be well informed and honest, but it also needs to recognise risk, cost and viability. There is little point securing a planning permission if the project ultimately isn’t commercially deliverable.”
Barker Parry is currently an all-female team, something that has particular resonance for Liz and Katie given their experiences of building careers in a traditionally male-led sector.
Katie first met Barker Parry co-founder Gae through Liz early in her career and remembers her as someone to look up to. “As a young woman in what was then a very male-dominated industry, I remember being in particular awe of Gae. She was an excellent role model.”
While Barker Parry is growing, Liz says retaining the accessibility and personal service of an independent consultancy remains fundamental to its future.
She added: “We want to grow our capability and give clients access to an even stronger team, without losing the things they value about working with Barker Parry.
“That means being able to pick up the phone and speak to someone who knows your project, getting clear advice and knowing that the people working with you are focused on achieving the right outcome.
“Bringing Katie into the business gives us a stronger and more balanced senior team from which we can continue to grow, while protecting the approach that has served Barker Parry and its clients for more than three decades.”
