About CAG

Our team

Susan Parham BA (Politics) G Dip (Urban & Regional Planning) MA (Urban Design) PhD Candidate (LSE Cities Programme)

Based in London
sp@cagconsult.co.uk
020 7704 0018

Susan's work crosses CAG’s three areas of stakeholder engagement, regeneration and sustainable development.
Susan focuses on consultation and engagement in a sustainable regeneration context with a focus on transport and access issues. Recent projects include:

• project managing the stakeholder consultation process as part of a clear zone programme at Holborn Circus for LB Camden and the City of London. Techniques include surveys with residents, local workers, businesses and visitors as well as an exhibition event at Holborn Circus to gather stakeholder views and feed these into the process of possible redesign of the intersection.
• managing the Hatton Garden ‘Clear Zone’ programme for Camden Council and the City of London to improve the sustainability of this area’s access networks. Susan worked on the team to deliver similar sustainability themed projects on the Bloomsbury, Fitzrovia and Covent Garden Clear Zones.
• managing the consultation programme for the development of the A1 Borough Strategy for LB Islington and directing CAG’s consultation for the same borough on Safer Routes to Public Transport from the Bemerton Estate. 
• consulting `hard to reach’ groups in Lincolnshire about access to health services as part of CAG’s work on an Accessibility Planning pilot project for the Department for Transport.
• working as part of a team to facilitate a series of five consultation workshops to explore community views on Lambeth's future transport strategy with the findings of the workshops used to inform priorities for the Borough Spending Plan and for Lambeth's transport strategy more generally, over the next 5-10 years.
• directing a programme of community profiling research for the Cross River Partnership, covering four boroughs in central London, with a view to improving performance of the partnership in involving communities in regeneration projects. The work included a broad scale social survey run by CAG associates, Community Consultants.
• managing the development of an involvement strategy for the Cross River Partnership, providing expert advice and support to the community involvement programme officer, directing a broad consultation programme with stakeholders and analysing regeneration requirements.
• working on a consultative project to ‘Unlock the potential of the Tottenham Marshes’.
• delivering a stakeholder involvement process for the LB Southwark Education Department focusing on skills and training issues in the borough and to consider issues and opportunities for developing an Employment Strategy for Southwark as part of the neighbourhood renewal programme.
• working on the regeneration of the Coldbath and Orchard estate in LB Greenwich as part of an SRB funded Health Benefits programme, identifying issues and barriers to regeneration and working with the community to explore design and process based solutions. Work included development of design proposals for estate regeneration.
• managing a consultation programme for a SRB partnership in north-west Leicester on establishing a community forum. Developed options for local democratic engagement with the community based management group and other stakeholders.

Susan has extensive evaluation experience in a regeneration context. Projects include:

• currently working on the team to conduct an end of scheme evaluation, forward strategy and action plan for the South Wye SRB Scheme and area.
• managing a mid term evaluation of the ERDF funded initiative Regeneration Across Communities of Lincolnshire (RACoL). The evaluation aimed to explore the performance of local funding panels and the main RACoL Steering Group as well as consider the programme at a strategic and operational level.
• completing a partnerships review for Cambridgeshire County Council which used on-line methods for running a self-evaluation process but included an independent expert analysis of findings by CAG.
• researching and evaluating notable practice in regeneration and providing a timeline of significant regeneration activity in Wales since the war, in the form of two substantial reports which focused on the sustainability or otherwise of approaches taken.
• managing the mid term evaluation for the East Colchester Partnership at project and partnership level including a value-for-money appraisal and in-depth case studies relating to a number of projects being evaluated.
• directing the East Colchester SRB5 programme employing an innovative model developed by CAG that was stakeholder-centred and used a variety of consultative and participatory techniques with local agencies and communities. Lessons learnt have helped refine the regeneration scheme overall and individual projects and develop future strategies for the area partnership involved.
• managing a Training Audit for the Kings Cross Partnership and Camden Central Regeneration Partnership, exploring gaps in appropriate training and skills development in the area and advising on funding and other support required as part of the broader regeneration initiatives in the area.
• working as part of a CAG team to evaluation the end of scheme NOW regeneration programme and previously to review voluntary sector grants in the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The aim was to review policy guidance and the policy framework within which grant decisions should be made, review baseline information for grants decisions and examine where benchmarks could be used to assess the cost effectiveness of grants provided.
• managing the successful SRB6 outline and final bids for a partnership of regeneration organisations based in Waltham Cross. The basis of the bid was the argument that in an area of overall prosperity pockets of deprivation were overlooked leading to hidden exclusion. The area required funding to address skills and training issues.
• leading the development of an Employment Strategy for Hertfordshire for the Hertfordshire County Council. The Strategy identified future labour and skill requirements, education attainment and skill levels of the workforce, potential skill and investment gaps, priorities for policy and public investment to raise education attainment and skill levels, and developed an implementation strategy for the County.
• developing a Quality Framework for the Hertfordshire ESF Objective 3 Priority 2 partners, reporting on key aspects of the current provision environment in Hertfordshire and identifying that some target groups, especially those with special needs, were not being effectively catered for by existing provision.

In relation to sustainability, recent projects include:

• directing a stakeholder centred review of the Thames Estuary Partnership’s draft Thames Strategy East which endeavours to ensure a more sustainable future for the lower reaches of the Thames.
• directing a Business Planning project for the London Biodiversity Partnership. The overall aim of the project was to produce a Business Plan for the Partnership through consensus with the various stakeholders. This included conducting a survey aimed at measuring private business interest and financial commitment to a ‘Wildlife Champions’ scheme.
• working on the review of the Welsh Sustainable Development Forum for the Welsh Assembly Government. The stakeholder centred review aimed to inform any future funding decisions made in relation to Cynnal Cymru, and the development of Cynnal Cymru’s forward work programme.
• working on the Sustainability Guide for the North East for Durham County Council, and project managing the development of the Hertfordshire Sustainable Development Guide, which CAG delivered in conjunction with Land Use Consultants.
• contributing to a number of Sustainability Appraisals and Evaluations; for Lancashire, for the Millennium Communities Programme at Greenwich for the DETR, and on the sustainability evaluation of PPG 13 (Transport).