Ian Campbell is an ex-chartered surveyor with over 50 years’ experience in real estate. He was Founder (1978) and Senior Partner at Campbell Gordon in Reading, a leading firm of Chartered Surveyors, specialising in offices, industrial property, and residential land markets, advising long term investors, sovereign funds, urban landed estates, occupiers, and property owners on value maximisation policies. In 2014 he retired.
His letters on how to deliver the housing needed are printed in The Times, The Financial Times, The Guardian, and professional and trade journals. Author of several publications addressing the Thames Valley growth conflicts and opportunities including, in 1990 a proposal for a new city between Reading and Basingstoke (Growth v Quality of Life, a Thames Valley Solution); in 2014 for the Wolfson Prize, a competitive essay entry on the way to deliver a new community which is popular, viable and deliverable; and in 2022 and 2023 for the Heywood Foundation, proposals for Local trust, and Suitable Homes in acceptable places.
Employed (1967/9) as residential land buyer by a long established, London based building and contracting company, he researched and wrote a study looking into south east growth areas for generations ahead. Future events endorsed most predictions.
Ian has a Bachelor’s degree from University College of Estate Management; was appointed to the Presidents’ Panel of Arbitrators and Experts at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and on behalf of the Institution, led the RICS Code of Measurement. When PM Margaret Thatcher set up the Community Foundations in the 1980’s he was appointed to the Berkshire Community Foundation, becoming a Trustee, and later Chair and finally Vice-President.
He is a busy father and grandfather who is confident it is possible to make new homes affordable for future generations, by striking the right balance between the no-building lobby and the growth lobby.