WOODSTOCK: JWPC Town Planning and Development Consultants has appointed John Phillips as a senior team member to deal with strategic planning and public relations.

The consultancy is also opening an office in London. Recent commissions include Gleeson Strategic Land for whom a development site in Witney will be promoted in West Oxfordshire’s policy planning framework.

Mr Phillips was chief planning officer at South Oxfordshire District Council between 1974 and 1987 and president of the national District Planning Officers’ Society from 1976-77 before he established his own planning consultancy in 1987, his major client being Robert Maxwell and the Mirror Group.

He retired to work from home in 2001 but claims to have been “dragged out of retirement for the third time” by son Jonathan Phillips, who runs the Woodstock office.