TRANSPORT PLANNING ASSOCIATES - Key Persons


Andrew Snowden

Job Titles:
  • Associate
Andrew has been with Transport Planning Associates since starting his career in Transport Planning in 2013, after graduating from Newcastle University with an MEng in Civil Engineering. In that time, he has undertaken work for predominantly private sector clients in various sectors, including residential, retail, employment, leisure, education and mixed uses. Andrew has significant experience in the delivery of Transport Assessments, Travel Plans and feasibility studies, as well as providing advice on the transport aspects of development masterplans, ranging from small to large scale development sites. He is also a fully qualified Road Safety Auditor and is a member of SoRSA, having undertaken more than 100 Road Safety Audits since 2015 covering a range of highway schemes, from residential estate roads to new roundabout and priority junctions on the strategic road network. Outside of work, Andrew enjoys relaxing at home in front of the TV, going to the cinema and playing five-a-side football on an evening. He is also lead guitarist for the TPA band.

Bus There

Job Titles:
  • Coach Services

Damian Ford

Job Titles:
  • Associate Director
  • Director
Damian started his Transport Planning career in 1994 and joined Transport Planning Associates in February 2014, having previously worked for PBA, TPK / RPS Group and Capita. He has a Master of Science degree in Transportation Planning and Engineering from the University of Southampton. Damian has worked on a wide variety of projects for both property developers and local authorities. His experience includes a range of land uses including residential, commercial, education, leisure and retail developments. The projects he has worked on has varied from due diligence / feasibility advice, masterplanning and design, through to preparing the necessary Transport Statements / Assessments and Travel Plans to secure planning permission. Away from work Damian enjoys watching football (although his playing days are now sadly in the past) and rugby. He can occasionally be seen at the County Ground watching Swindon Town. He also enjoys travelling, particularly to the southern hemisphere, and spending time with his family.

Daniel Ekstrand

Job Titles:
  • Director
Daniel started his career in Transport Planning in 2002 and joined Transport Planning Associates in September 2014 as an Associate Director, having previously worked for PBA (now Stantec) for twelve years. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering from Faculty of Engineering LTH at Lund University in Sweden and is a Chartered Transport Planning Professional having obtained the Transport Planning Professional qualification. He is also a member of both the TPS and CIHT professional institutions. Daniel is an expert user of Paramics and Vissim microsimulation and has validated many models using both since 2003. Aside from undertaking modelling Daniel has managed and worked on a wide variety of projects for both property developers and local authorities. His experience includes a range of land uses including residential, commercial, education, leisure and retail developments. His advice to clients has ranged from due diligence and feasibility, master planning and design, through to preparing the necessary Transport Statements or Assessments and Travel Plans to secure planning permission. He has also appeared as expert witness giving evidence in respect of planning appeals heard at Public Inquiries and informal hearings. Outside work Daniel enjoys watching movies or attending concerts. He also enjoys travelling with his partner, especially to New York (or anywhere sunny) as well as just staying at home having a night in, or throwing a dinner party for his friends.

Ian Bryant

Job Titles:
  • Associate

James Darrall

Job Titles:
  • Director
James Darrall is the director who leads our Bristol office. James has over 20 years' experience in development and transport planning for a range of land use types including retail, residential, employment and mixed use sites. He has considerable experience in Transport Planning and Highway Engineering and has been involved with projects in a full range of land uses across the UK. He predominantly works with private sector clients including house builders, developers, land owners and land promoters. He has a broad range of specialist skills including expert witness experience, highway mitigation solutions, sustainable transport strategies , town centre regeneration studies, and strategic and microsimulation traffic modelling. He is forward thinking and has an interest in sustainable transport solutions, triple access planning and the latest advances in transport planning. He has detailed working knowledge of the Manual for Streets and the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges and is cognisant of the latest transport planning policies. He represents clients in negotiating with stakeholders and highway authorities. Away from the office James enjoys motorbiking, fishing and is a keen drummer.

John Hopkins

Job Titles:
  • Director
John joined the Company in 1998 as employee number six and became a Director in 2007. Previous to this John spent ten years working for various private consultancy practices, both large and small, and local highway authorities on both a permanent and contract basis. John would class himself as a rounded transport professional due to his depth and breadth of experience, which is constantly put to good effect satisfy the demands and expectations of a variety of private sector clients. This experience includes assessing the feasibility of development proposals, identifying the scope and extent of likely development impact, giving consideration of non-car accessibility improvement works, the preparation of Transport Assessments and Travel Plans, undertaking the detailed design and specification of infrastructure improvement works, the supervision of infrastructure works, the preparation of legal agreements and providing written and oral evidence as an Expert Witness. Away from work John is a man of simple pleasures; spending time relaxing with his family (if relaxing is the correct term with four children), socialising with friends (if the demands of four children allows) and enjoying a variety of sports (albeit mainly in a spectator capacity these days).

Julia Justice

Job Titles:
  • Associate Director
Julia joined TPA in 1999 as Office Manager and was our first member of support staff, having previously worked with the Company's two co-founders.

Julian Clarke

Job Titles:
  • Director
Julian joined Transport Planning Associates (then Pinnacle Transportation) in February 2003 and was promoted to the board of directors in January 2007. Julian previously held positions as an Associate at WSP Group and as a Principal Transport Planner at Colin Buchanan and Partners (now SKM Colin Buchanan). With more than 20 years' experience, Julian is a civil engineer and transport planner specialised in advising primarily private sector clients on the transport infrastructure requirements of proposals for the development of land for a range of land uses including, food and non-food retail; residential; education; health and sports and leisure and regularly leads company's role as part of a multi-disciplinary project team to deliver optimal, cost effective and innovative solutions to today's transport planning challenges. Julian has appeared as an expert witness at Informal Hearings, Public Inquiries and Compulsory Purchase Inquiries. Outside work Julian is a keen photography enthusiast, enjoys good food, fine wine and following the exploits of his two son's football team's. With two daughters too, Julian has little time to enjoy time on the golf course, sadly.

Nathan Hanks

Job Titles:
  • Director
Nathan has over fifteen years' experience in Transport Planning and Highway Engineering, working on retail, residential, industrial and mixed use schemes across the UK. His experience ranges from feasibility advice, traffic orders and travel plans; through to transport assessments and highway infrastructure design. He is a specialist in retail development and has been involved with more than more than 500 schemes for retail clients over his career to date and has undertaken research on the travel patterns of retail customers, the results of which have recently been published in the Transport Planning & Technology Journal. Nathan is also an active cricket player and cyclist.

Richard Morrison

Job Titles:
  • Associate
Richard started working in transport planning in 1990 after spending his formative years working in the wider field of civil engineering. During that time, he worked on large civil engineering schemes such as the A55 North Wales Coast Road and the Ruabon/Newbridge/Chirk bypass, while employed at Travers Morgan. After an 18 year career in the transport planning team at Travers Morgan/Symonds/Capita, during which time he worked on projects such as the Reading Oracle, Farnborough Business Park and the Liberty Centre, Romford, he joined TPA in May 2015. Based in the London office, Richard has significant experience in both highways and transportation planning, providing high level and detailed transport and highway consultancy advice to a range of clients in the private and public sectors with projects ranging from shopping centres, business parks, mixed use developments, hospitals, schools and housing. He has a broad background in the highways field with extensive knowledge of all aspects of highway design, drawn from his work on the design of the A55 North Wales Coast Road and from other large highway schemes. Outside of work, Richard's interests include photography, archery, badminton, hill walking and for his sins, following the travails of West Ham United.

Robert Roughan

Job Titles:
  • Associate
Rob joined TPA in January 2018 and has over eight years' experience working in development and transport planning. Rob has a keen interest in delivering sustainable transport solutions for his clients, and has helped deliver planning permissions for projects in the residential, commercial, retail and aviation sectors. Rob's work regularly involves preparing Transport Assessments, Travel Plans and feasibility studies, as well as inputting into the development of masterplans Outside of work, Rob is a keen footballer and long suffering supporter of Nottingham Forest. He also enjoys attending music festivals and concerts.

Ross Clarke

Job Titles:
  • Associate Director

Rupert Lyons - CEO

Job Titles:
  • Chief Executive
  • Director
Rupert Lyons, Chief Executive, said: "We have identified the Thames Valley region as an area of increasing development activity that aligns nicely with the short-term growth objectives of our business. While we continue to work in the region for clients of our existing offices, opening in Oxford will bring us greater opportunities to forge new client relationships and help us to deliver those objectives." Rupert is a transport planning consultant with considerable experience of the transport and land use development planning process. He predominantly works with private sector developers and land owners to assess the transport infrastructure and services requirements of a wide variety of development proposals. That work includes the preparation of Transport Assessments and Travel Plans to support planning applications for new development together with the negotiation of the scope and extent of transport infrastructure works to be implemented and/or financial contributions to be made towards the improvement of existing transport infrastructure and services made pursuant to appropriate legal agreements between developers and local authorities. He frequently appears as an expert witness giving evidence in respect of planning appeals heard at public inquiries and informal hearings, and to examinations in public of local development plan documents prepared by local planning authorities. Rupert co-founded Transport Planning Associates (then Pinnacle Transportation) in 1997 and previously held positions with White Young Green and Ove Arup & Partners, both large multi-disciplinary engineering consultancies. He has a Master of Science degree in transportation planning and engineering from the University of Southampton and is a Chartered Member of the Institute of Logistics and Transport. In his spare time, he enjoys watching his youngest son playing for Welwyn Pegasus Football Club, the great outdoors, and endeavouring to improve his culinary skills and his backgammon game.

Simon Moody

Job Titles:
  • Associate
Simon has worked in Transport Planning for over 11 years, during which time he has completed an MSc in Transport Planning at the University of the West of England. Simon joined Transport Planning Associates in October 2016, providing highway and transportation advice relating to the development planning process. Throughout his career Simon has worked on behalf of private and public sector clients on a wide range of transport and development related projects including mixed-use, residential, commercial, education and leisure developments. In his current position as Associate, Simon specialises in client liaison and project management, overseeing and undertaking the delivery of Transport Assessments, Travel Plans, Environmental Assessments, outline business cases and providing masterplanning advice. Simon also has extensive experience in the identification of highway and transport solutions and the preliminary design of highway infrastructure improvements. Outside of work Simon enjoys spending time with his family and trying to keep up with his wife in triathlons. He also has a keen interest in music and enjoys practising with his colleagues as lead singer of the TPA band!

Sohail 'Henry' Wanchoo

Job Titles:
  • Consultant
  • Finance
  • Consultant - Financ

Tracey Kusi-Appiah

Job Titles:
  • Associate
Tracey joined the WGC office of TPA in 2008 as a member of the administrative and accounting team. Her role has developed since and now, in addition to the accounting functions, she also manages our internal project financial management system. Previously, Tracey worked in varying accounting roles for companies operating in a variety of business sectors. Outside of work Tracey's interests include gardening and collecting decorative art.

Trevor Preston

Job Titles:
  • Associate
Trevor has over 30 years' experience in Highways and Traffic Engineering along with substantial expertise in the design and development of Intelligent Transport Systems. He has held positions as Technical Director at Jacobs Engineering, Director of Traffic Systems Design and positions with Babtie, AECOM, WSP and Transport for London. He provides design and management input on highway and infrastructure projects for a number public and private sector clients including retail and residential development, safety engineering improvement schemes and Road Safety Auditing including Highway England's Motorway's and Trunk roads. Away from work, Trevor is a Commercial Pilot and Flight Instructor and enjoys teaching aerobatics and flying vintage aircraft. On rainy days he can be found in the kitchen competing in TPA's ‘Bake Off' competitions.