Associates

Graham Barrow BA(Hons) MSc MPhil

Graham Barrow has over 35 years' professional experience with heritage and countryside planning and management. He is qualified in Geography (Liverpool 1970), Conservation (UCL, 1971), Urban Design and Regional Planning (Edinburgh, 1980) and European Environmental Policy and Regulation (Lancaster, 1997) and was a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute for over 25 years.

Graham began his career as a geography tutor at a field studies centre in the English Lake District and was one of the first people in the UK to carry out research into issues concerned with recreational carrying capacity in the 1970s. Carrying capacity is a key to sustainable tourism and it has remained an interest of Graham's throughout his career. After 11 years in Scotland working for the Countryside Commission for Scotland, Lothian Regional Council and ASH Environmental Design Partnership in Glasgow, he returned to England in 1984 to head up the national Centre for Environmental Interpretation (CEI) at Manchester Metropolitan University.

For 13 years the CEI developed a strong national and international reputation for promoting the sound interpretation of the natural and built heritage and was retained by bodies such as the Countryside Commission, Scottish Natural Heritage, English Heritage and the National Trust to advise and represent them in the better interpretation of sites throughout the UK. The centre ran a national programme of training and was important in giving the subject of heritage interpretation a strong focus in the UK throughout the 1980s and 90s. Graham developed a particular expertise in interpretation planning and the involvement of local communities in the presentation of their heritage. Much of the work of the CEI was connected with the development of sustainable tourism and a significant proportion of their consultancy contracts were for local authorities and in protected landscape and wildlife areas such as National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Heritage Coasts and National Nature Reserves. The centre also advised at a range of built heritage attractions and historic landscape areas.

On leaving the CEI in 1996 Graham spent a year studying at Lancaster University, being awarded an MSc with Distinction in European Environmental Policy and Regulation in September 1997. He completed a dissertation on the early progress with Local Agenda 21 in the north-west of England and read widely around the subject of sustainable development.

Since 2008 Graham has been the lead TEAM consultant working in Xi'an, China - project managing our advice on the development of the Daming Palace National Heritage Park and more recently working on a proposed new tourism resort near Hancheng, beside the Yellow River in Shaanxi.

Graham provides specialist advice and consultancy in the following areas:

• Heritage and environmental interpretation and visitor management
• Strategic planning for heritage, recreation and tourism
• The establishment of new environmental organisations and trusts
• Community-based consultation and planning
• Rural and urban development programmes
• Sustainable development and Local sustainability issues
• Fundraising and management advice for environmental organisations
• Questionnaire design and analysis
• Feasibility studies for new environmental, heritage and educational developments
• Policy related research and evaluation
• Evaluation of heritage projects and protected sites

Graham also has wide international experience and has worked on specific environmental and heritage projects in Canada, USA, Ireland, Spain, France, Bulgaria and Australia. He was also a founder member of Heritage and Tourism International, the partnership between Oxford Archaeology and Team Tourism Consultants and Imagemakers that provides an international consultancy service.

Graham is also the voluntary Chairman of a local Development Trust that is managing land and buildings of value to the local community in his home town of Bollington, near Macclesfield in Cheshire.

Key areas of expertise

External funding bids; site and strategic visitor management; heritage interpretation and education; heritage attraction development; community consultation and involvement; establishing new trusts; arts, culture and heritage: audience development.