Audio recording of Jim Urwin (b. 1951) and David Keene (b. 1952)

Jim Urwin and David Keene, Directors of David Lock Associates (David Lock Associates), talk about their career paths to David Lock Associates. Jim remembers the working conditions and the first employees in the very early days of David Lock Associates when it was based at David and Jeanette’s house and the change in management style that has been necessitated as the company has grown.

The firm’s reputation was built on doing large-scale urban but they now also do a lot of town centre regeneration. Mention is made of the importance of the role of Jeannette Lock as Financial Controller of the business, reminding them that it was a business and making sure they got the figures right. They still feel that the firm is ‘a big family’, not a 9 to 5 place, and explain how the allocation of projects happens, using the analogy of a barristers’ chambers. Discussion how the firm’s approach is not just concerned with earning money, but in working to educate clients to improve the quality of the submission and to create better places.

They discuss what they mean by ‘place-making’. In the first 10 years or so the work of the company and David was ahead of the rest of the profession and was influential in setting a wider planning agenda for the country and other consultancies. The rest of world caught up when David became part-time Chief Planning Adviser at DoE. A lot of their philosophy was transferred into Policy Planning Guidance. Now there is a broad place-making agenda that most people subscribe to. The current fad of the ‘sustainability agenda’ is something David Lock Associates have subscribed to from Day 1.

Particular jobs discussed including for Blue Circle (now Larfage) Cement on giving life to new quarries, particularly in North Kent and the creation of a new community, Ebbsfleet, Northern Ireland and the North Pennines. They discuss the long time scales of jobs in this kind of work. Other topics raised include, attitude to winning awards, the background behind the setting up of David Lock Associates Australia, the effect of changing technology on the business and their involvement in and opinion of the development of Milton Keynes – how it has ‘lost its way’ and needs to look at its economic base.