Our approach and team

We are an independent landscape and seascape planning practice with wide experience across England and Wales. We are considered leaders in landscape sensitivity and capacity, seascape sensitivity, renewable energy and LANDMAP assessments. Whilst we often compete with much larger practices what gives us the edge is that our principal, Simon White, is fully involved in every single project – leading or undertaking a large proportion of the assessment or reporting. We do not rest on our laurels- we are constantly searching to improve our knowledge and techniques to respond to clients’ needs and the changing context.

Simon and Felicity White as co-director are assisted by a team of highly skilled and experienced associate consultants. We do not delegate key tasks to junior staff. This keeps our output reliable, high quality and cost effective.

Simon White
DipLA DipUD (Dist) MA CMLI

Simon White is the managing director of the consultancy and has over 30 years experience throughout the UK. He is dually qualified in landscape architecture and urban design which informs his approach to all projects.

He has run the practice since 1996. Whilst specialising in landscape and seascape planning and expert witness he leads and fully contributes to all projects.



Simon Michaels
DipLA DipUD MA FRSA

Simon is a multi-talented landscape architect and urban designer with 22 years experience and additional expertise in community participation, social enterprise and local food. He pioneered townscape character assessment for LUC in Oxford and contributes now to seascape and urban fringe sensitivity studies with us.


Pat Shears
BA (Hons) DipLA 

Pat is a landscape architect with 21 years experience in landscape planning, specialising in landscape sensitivity, landscape character assessment and historic landscapes from East Anglia (for the Landscape Partnership) to the Midlands and West Country.


Harry Bell
BA (Hons)

Harry is our main GIS specialist with 25 years experience in data capture, interpretation and management, and map production. Harry is experienced in working in protected landscapes as well as for local authorities and undertakes statistical and spatial analysis, database creation and GIS tasks for us.


Trevor McDonald
BSc C Eng

Trevor is our photomontage, wireline and ZTV specialist with 25 years experience. Trevor can produce superb, detailed photomontages of a large range of developments to the latest visualisation standards. Developments have included windfarms, solar farms, livestock markets and lifeboat stations.


Felicity White

Felicity White is a director in the consultancy. She is responsible for administration and financial matters.

 

Collaborators

We collaborate regularly with several professionals and organisations who are among the best in their field to undertake more complex multi-disciplinary studies.

A key collaborator is Steven Warnock who is a landscape ecologist specialising in the analysis of English landscapes using the national landscape typology/Landscape Description Unit (LDU) approach.

Northumbria University collaborate with us on marine/seascape projects, complex GIS intervisibility and strategic multi-criteria analysis projects.

We work with Cardiff University School of Earth and Ocean Sciences for some of our marine/seascape projects and LANDMAP related assessments.

Catherine Etchell undertakes planting and management plans where required to support planning applications.

We also bring in other specialists as required including planners, ecologists, archaeologists and arboriculturalists.

Software Capabilities

White Consultants’ team GIS capability includes the use of ArcGIS, MapInfo and QGIS programmes. Photomontaging and ZTVs use Autodesk Max, Autodesk Map, Key Terra Firma and Photoshop. For design work we primarily use Vectorworks with full compatibility with Autocad products.

Limited company details

White Consultants is the trading name of White Consultants: Environment Ltd.