Sheffield Hallam University

Faculty Member, Development & Society

Senior Lecturer & Course Leader, BSc (Hons) Real Estate

Department of the Built Environment

About

QUALIFICATIONS

LLB (Hons); Solicitor; MRes (Sociology, Planning & Policy)

BACKGROUND

Studied sociology, politics and law at Cardiff University in the late 1980s. I then joined Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) in 2007 after 17 years in commercial legal practice as a solicitor advising on environmental and public safety law.

AREAS OF RESEARCH

At SHU I have been working on the following research projects:

1) Landowners and land managers perceptions of liability risk for public safety upon their land and within their buildings

2) Metal theft and the built environment: anatomy of a crime wave

3) A study of the meanings, motives and methods of recreational trespass to derelict industrial and military sites

4) The use of simulation and photography in teaching occupiers' liability law

5) The interaction of the symbolic (law, culture), the pragmatic (action & practice) and the concrete (material, built 'things') in the formation and management of ruined, mundane, abandoned and infrastructural places

CONFERENCE PAPERS

The above have led to my published papers and also the following conference presentations:

July 2012 - Royal Geographical Society conference - Edinburgh (bunkers and geographies of enthusiasm)

May 2012 - Affective Landscapes conference - Derby (bunkers & genre)

February 2012 - Public Sector FM Network - Sheffield (facilities management and liability to trespassers)

January 2012 - Countryside Recreation Network - Edinburgh (access/occupiers' liability research)

November 2011 - Arboricultural Association (Midlands) - Leicester (trees and public liability)

September 2011 - Centre for Computing & Social Responsibility - ETHICOMP 2011 - Sheffield (the knowledge structures of online urban explorer forums)

September 2011 - RICS - COBRA 2011 - Manchester (on the pragmatics of warning signs)

June 2011 - SHU - Empty Premises Conference - Sheffield (organiser and chairman)

September 2010 - RICS - COBRA 2010 Legal Research Symposium - Paris, France (Judges' attitudes to the safety of child trespassers)

February 2010 - SHU - The Future of Street Trees Conference - Sheffield (street trees and liability)

November 2009 - RoSPA - National Water Safety Congress - Cardiff (access and liability)

July 2009 - Countryside Recreation Network - Taking a chance outdoors conference - Birmingham (outdoor access, children and fear of liability)

April 2009 - RICS - ROOTS 2009 Conference - Cambridge (access and liability)

June 2008 - Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism - Annual Conference - Manchester (metal theft and the built environment)

June 2008 - Chartered Institute of Wastes Management Annual Conference - Torbay (metal theft and the built environment)

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