The Team

We are a small planning consultancy with a focus on employing the services of highly qualified and experienced staff. Please see below for an overview of the team.

Matthew is one of the founding directors of Williams Gallagher. He was formerly a Director at Savills where he led the retail and town centres planning service for the Midlands.

Matt’s expertise is in providing holistic planning strategies for clients that test the accepted and take advantage of continuing amendments to planning legislation. He is able to draw on a breadth and depth of expertise including planning inputs to the preparation of town centre masterplans and development briefs; complex applications for mixed-use schemes including town centre regeneration projects; major residential schemes; setting defensive strategies; the negotiation of conditions and obligations; retail impact assessment; preparation and coordination of environmental impact assessment; preparation of planning appraisals for development sites; defining and running stakeholder engagement and consultation; and formulation of policy and strategy for planning documents.

He is also an experienced expert witness and has appeared at numerous public inquiries, hearings and local plan examinations. To date, he has secured his clients’ interests at all appeals and examinations he has led.

Matt sits on the Revo Planning Working Group, is an RTPI Ambassador for the West Midlands and provides expert advice to the Institute of Licensing and the MHCLG.

Outside of the office, Matt is a keen mountain biker, motorcyclist, walker, kayaker, gadget geek and music lover. He can often be found exploring the great outdoors with his family and friends.

Heather is one of the founding directors of Williams Gallagher. She is an experienced town planning practitioner with particular expertise in promoting sustainable town centre, retail and mixed-use development schemes.

She is an advocate of the town centres first approach and utilises her retail expertise to deliver innovative and creative planning solutions to promote town centre vitality and viability across the length and breadth of the UK. She also has a significant track record in advising on the formulation of strategy, planning appraisal, retail impact assessment and supporting statements, town centre strategy and masterplanning advice, the preparation of evidence for planning appeals and the submission of planning applications.

Prior to setting up Williams Gallagher, Heather was employed by Savills and, prior to this, Deloitte Real Estate, where she worked with a diverse range of private and public sector clients across a variety of different sectors. Previous clients include Universities Superannuation Scheme, Grosvenor, ASDA Stores Ltd, Taylor Wimpey, L&G and Royal Mail Estates.

In addition to her planning work, Heather is responsible for the day to day running of the business and has played a significant role developing the company’s brand, setting up and managing the company’s accounting systems and devising the company’s marketing collateral.

Outside of the office, Heather is the proud owner of the honorary office dogs – Geoffrey and Ralph the Cavapoos – and enjoys spending her free time by the sea with her husband Paul.

07944 513 126

Rob joined the company in March 2018. He is a Chartered Town Planner with experience of working in both the public and private sectors on major residential-led regeneration schemes.

For the last 19 years, he has been based in Birmingham during which time he worked for Birmingham City Council and Savills before joining Williams Gallagher.

Rob is an expert in development management, working with clients from scheme concept to the delivery of viable and implementable planning permissions. He has experience in securing planning permission for mixed-use, housing, student accommodation and commercial schemes including Park Central in Birmingham and the early phases of Eastside. More recently he has worked on proposals for sustainable urban extensions and strategic employment sites and is currently working on a major regeneration site in Birmingham City Centre.

Outside of the office, Rob spends his time trying to follow his favourite bands, ploughing through the Booker Long List and searching for the perfect porter.

Elliott recently graduated from Nottingham Trent University with First Class Honours in Property Development and Planning  BSc (Hons) (RICS Accredited).

Elliott first joined the company as part of his placement year during his studies at NTU. Upon return to university for his final year of studies, Elliott continued to support the team in a part time capacity and has now re-joined the team full time.

Elliott enjoys seeing places and people thrive and looks forward to supporting projects and learning from an experienced team, to ensure the best success for clients. 

Prior to joining Williams Gallagher and during Elliott’s second year of university in Nottingham, he worked part time as a project manager, where he developed key communication and organisation skills. Elliott also recently joined his Parish Council as a voluntary member, to help create a new Neighbourhood Plan.

Outside of the office, Elliott was previously a trampolinist and represented the country in international competitions, once achieving a silver medal. Since stepping back from the sport to focus on his education and long-term future, he enjoys seeing friends, various arts and sport/fitness.