BRIAN WATERS MA DipArch(Cantab) DipTP RIBA MRTPI past President ACA FRSA

BRIAN is principal of architects and planning consultants The Boisot Waters Cohen Partnership (BWCP) founded in 1972.

A chartered architect, he studied architecture at St John’s College, Cambridge where he was a Trevelyan Scholar; a chartered town planner, he studied at the Polytechnic of Central London.

He went to the City of London School, is a Freeman of the City of London and a founder member of the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects where he was Master in 2002-3.

As a graduate he worked for the City of London Corporation, as a housing architect at the GLC and with Shankland/Cox where he was team leader for the Hampstead Garden Suburb Conservation Plan and worked on the UNDP tourist development plan for the Adriatic coast of Yugoslavia and the Dee Estuary Plan.

He served on policy groups on transport and London regional policy under Peter Walker and John Boyd-Carpenter.

He was chairman of the National Planning Forum between 2011 and 2017 and has been chairman of the London Planning & Development Forum since 1990.

He is joint publishing editor of Planning in London, its journal. Planning in London won Magazine of the Year (non weekly) 2007 at the International Building Press Awards and has been a finalist most years since 2006, most recently 2018. He has won and been commended as an IBP writer of the year for Building, the RIBA Journal and the Architects Journal; he has been planning correspondent for the AJ for some decades.

He was the private sector member of the DCLG steering group contributing to the then government’s Killian-Pretty review of planning in 2009.

He was elected to the RIBA Council in 1987 and RIBA Vice-President Marketing 1988-90 and again for 1991-2. He chaired the RIBA National Architecture Conference held in London in 1991.

He was elected a member of the council of the Association of Consultant Architects in 1997, is twice a past President and was elected again in 2016-2018.

He was elected president of the Old Citizens’ Association, alumni of the City of London School for 2004-05.

He is co-chairman of the University of Cambridge Land Society Architecture, Planning, Engineering and Construction (APEC) Forum. He has tutored or lectured at Cambridge, Welsh, Westminster and London Met universities and given the postgraduate town planning course at the Architectural Association school.

He has been a committee member of ESSA (Edwardes Square, Scarsdale, Abingdon Conservation Area) since 2012. In 2014 he became a member of the plan drafting group of the Ham & Petersham Neighbourhood Forum (plan adopted December 2018 following referendum) and was elected a Forum member in 2017. He became a trustee of the Cassel Mental Hospital Trust in 2017.

Brian was highly commended in the 2007 London Planning Awards for ‘best personal contribution’; these awards are made by the Mayor, London First and the RTPI. He was appointed member of the steering group of the RTPI’s ICN – Independent Consultants’ Network in 2022 and chaired part of its annual conference in Chester that year.

The University of Westminster conferred an honorary Fellowship in November 2012.

He is a member of the RAC Club, Hurlingham and a fellow of the RSA. He enjoys painting, ‘wild’ swimming, dressage, carriage driving the working shire horses in Richmond Park and Hampton Court Home Park and his Catalan donkeys.