Uppingham resident and housing law specialist Nick Townsend has been appointed to the boards of Uppingham First and the Uppingham Homes Community Land Trust. Nick qualified as a solicitor in 1970. He then worked in private practice for a number of years mainly in his home city of Leicester where he specialised in town and country planning and property development law acting for a number of major public and private bodies advising on a wide variety of urban and suburban development and regeneration schemes throughout the UK. In 1993 Nick became Group Legal Director at Wilson Bowden Plc a FTSE 250 housebuilding and property development company. As well as advising the board and procuring legal services, he also ran the strategic land operations for the Group. He retired from the Board in 2006 at the time that the company, whose principal operating company was David Wilson Homes, was being acquired by Barratt Homes In addition to his professional and corporate work Nick was heavily involved in a number of public/private partnerships dealing with physical and economic regeneration in Leicester namely:-
1990 – 1993 – Chair of Leicester City Challenge
1995 – 1977 – Chair of Leicester Common Purpose
2000 – 2003 – Founding member of Leicester Business Voice
2001 – 2007 – Director of Leicester Regeneration Company
2002 – 2006 – Chair of Leicester and Leicestershire Economic Partnership
Nick was also involved in lobbying and policy development at national government level through his work as a Commissioner for Sustainable Development in the South East and as a founding member of the Campaign for More and Better Homes.
