Matt Thomson has been Head of Planning at the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) since July 2014.  He is a chartered town planner with 15 years experience shaping planning policies for mainly rural local authorities in the home counties, and was Head of Policy and Practice at the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) from 2009-2011, where he led on developing the Institute’s 2010 Manifesto for Planning, along with helping shape the profession’s response to the Localism Bill, the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and policies for national infrastructure.  In 2011 he began PhD research at Oxford Brookes University into the use of ‘visions’ in local place-shaping, which he is now completing part-time.