Karen Curtin and Sue Smith

Karen Curtin trained as an accountant and was previously head of finance and procurement at Northamptonshire and Cherwell councils. She has successfully tackled Section 106 disagreements that were delaying development without compromising any of the environmental aspects of the design.

She has led on the work to develop self-build housing in Cherwell and managed to speed up the planning consent for landowners wanting to self-build. She also successfully argued for Bicester to become a garden town.

Sue Smith has overseen the UK’s largest self-build and custom build development, which included buying 200 hectares of land from the Ministry of Defence. She says the journey “hasn’t been smooth, but we have all learned an enormous amount, and shared with others the successes and the pain”.