Jim Barnes, quantity surveyor

Born in Watford, Jim Barnes left school at 16, to train at a London firm of quantity surveyors. Following qualification, he worked in Watford and Slough and was thepleased to get a job in 1960 with Henry Cooper & Sons, reputed to be the oldest established firm of quantity surveyors in the world. As partof their expansion plans, they eventually opened an office in Milton Keynes. Jim had earlier worked on several projects for Bucks County Council, including a teacher training college near Wheatley, on which some ‘really talented architects’ worked. Fred Pooley (Bucks Council Chief Architect) had to be brought into this successful project at one stage, and Jim and his boss got reasonably close to him. Fred Pooley was working on the ‘Pooleyville’ project for a London overspill town in North Bucks and Henry Cooper & Sons did some calculations for him on the huge volumes of materials needed to build a new town. This involvement led to them being appointed quantity surveyors to extend Wavendon Tower for the Milton Keynes Development Corporation. Seeing further opportunities for projects for the firm, Henry Cooper’s opened an Office in Stony Stratford (‘fortunately for me’, says Jim), sharing some office space with Gerald Neil Fennemore, lawyers. Jim’s role was to take those opportunities, and build up the MK practice.

In 1988-89, after many successful years, Jim left Coopers and became Managing Director of Hobbs (Surveyors) in MK. But in the early 1990s ‘ the crash came and crucified us’, he says, so they closed the MK office and relocated to London. While working in London, Jim has continued living in MK, where he had become very much involved with the community – Round Table, Rotary (of which he was twice President) local golf clubs. He has served on the Boards of The Milton Keynes Foundation, the YMCA, Art in Milton Keynes, the local RICS branch and the MK Community Foundation.