New director of economics for planning consultancy

Consultancy Marrons Planning has appointed a new director of economics to lead its new socio-economics service.

Planner Simon Macklen takes on the new role, leaving his previous role as a director at consultancy Barton Willmore, where he led the practice’s development economics department, and where he spent more than 15 years.

Marrons Planning said Macklen will head up its new socio-economics service “which will support developers in evidencing the need for and impact of schemes on the local population, social infrastructure and the economy in planning proposals.”

The new service will carry out market intelligence studies to understand the development needs of different areas, population modelling to predict their future housing and employment needs, and impact assessments to examine the impact of developments on different communities.

The firm said Macklen will be responsible for setting up the new service and growing the team in the future.

Macklen said: “I enjoy drawing out the need for development and its impact on the surrounding population and, in particular, identifying the benefits of a scheme to the local community that are quite often hidden or not so obvious. This insight can also help inform a client’s commercial decision-making process.”

Brian Mullin, partner and head of Marrons Planning, said: “This will allow us to combine town planning and evaluation skills with socio-demographic and economic analysis to provide robust evidence that will inform commercial decision-making and successful planning outcomes.”

Macklen has also previously worked as a planning associate at consultancy The Littman Partnership, which was acquired by real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) in 2006.