Paul Burton

In the 1970s he studied town and country planning in London and then worked as planner for the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, before joining the School for Advanced Urban Studies at the University of Bristol. Paul moved, with his family, to Australia in 2007 and remains an active member of PIA and the UDIA. Paul studied town and country planning at the Polytechnic of the South Bank in London and then worked in development assessment with the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. He joined the University of Bristol in the early 1980s to carry out research for his PhD on the redevelopment of London’s docklands and became a researcher, looking at various urban policy initiatives in the UK and Europe. Paul was invited to chair the Bristol Democracy Commission, a body responsible for advising the city council on its future political management structures and carried out a similar review for the States of Guernsey in the Channel Islands.
In his spare time, Paul served on the management committee and then as company secretary of a local community group, Support Against Racist Incidents (SARI), which continues to work with people experiencing racial violence and harassment. In Australia, Paul was a founding member of Regional Development Australia, Gold Coast and has been an active member of PIA for over a decade, currently serving as co-convenor of the Education Sub-Committee of the Queensland Division. Paul has experience of leading schools and research institutes within universities, helping manage community organisations and advocating on some of the big issues in planning, such as housing, homelessness and land supply. He is also especially interested in the initial education and continuing professional development of planners.