After almost 15 years in the role, John Devlin is stepping down as Chair of designe, the design review & enabling service for northeast England.
A message from Tony Wyatt and Alan Wann, current co-vice chairs
John has held the position of Chair of the North East Design Review and Enabling Panel (NEDRES) since the inauguration of the service in 2009 under the auspices of the then regional development agency, One NE.
During that time, he has guided the service through a number of changes after the demise of One NE in 2011 – through the service being hosted by the RIBA NE regional office – through to the floating it off of as an independent profit for purpose company in November 2017 under the new title designe.
The service comprises of a Panel of 30+ built environment specialists from across the disciplines whose expertise can be brought to bear to help improve design quality of development in the north east.
During his chairmanship John has led on over two hundred Design Reviews, training sessions, wide-ranging Enabling Projects, and with the close assistance of his co-Directors expanded the organisation’s sphere of influence into Building for a Healthy Life assessments, National Design Guide compliance assessments, and most recently leading on developing model Design Codes for the development of modern garden villages in the northeast.
The driving force behind John’s approach to design has been a desire to continually improve the design quality and thereby functionality of the built environment. The next development should always be better designed, more fit for purpose and more efficient to build, maintain and run than the last. New developments should be forward-looking, have a low environmental impact and prepared to respond to the needs of the next century.
Although stepping down as Chair of the Panel, John will continue to bring his extensive expertise as a Panel member to both lead and contribute to future projects undertaken by the service.
We like to consider that John has performed the role of an accomplished Conductor securing the best from a variety of built environment experts brought together in a variety of contexts to encourage the development of better places.
On behalf of those who have benefited from Johns leadership we say thank you.
Next Steps for designe and the North East design review service
Essentially it will be business as usual, and we will act as co-chairs of design northeast for the foreseeable future.
We will initially focus on the core services of design review, Building for a Healthy Life and learning and in the coming months we will be looking to further strengthen and diversify our panel of expert-built environment practitioners.
We will also continue to work with our partners in the English Design Network to further develop a consistent journey for all service users.
Tony Wyatt Alan Wann
Co-Chair design North East Co-Chair design North East