Dr Tim Williams
Associate and project leader
tim@citystrategy.co.uk
Tim is one of the UK and Australia’s most highly regarded urban thinkers. He was Cities Lead for Arup Australasia, and is Cities Advocacy lead for architects and planners Grimshaw, having spent 10 years leading the Committee for Sydney. where he produced ground-breaking and influential work on housing, urban policy, tech and infrastructure.
Tim is a director of his own company Publicani where he advises senior government and private sector clients on post Covid innovation, urban transformation, infrastructure, governance and economic development.
Before arriving in Australia in 2010, Tim was recognised as a UK thought-leader in urban regeneration for his role in advising governments and leading the economic development and promotion of East London (north and south of the Thames) as CEO of the Thames Gateway London Partnership. He was also a founding associate member of Blair’s Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit led by Sir Michael Barber.
From 2005 to 2010 Tim was a specialist advisor on urban development, city strategy, governance, housing, and planning to five successive UK ministers . He advised the first Mayor of London on the development of London’s first housing design guide in 2009 and Lend Lease’s UK CEO on Olympic strategy as they took on a major role delivering development on the Olympic Park. Tim also advised Olympic Host Boroughs on their legacy strategy for the 2012 Games.
From 2011 to 2017 Tim’s work as CEO of the Committee for Sydney focused on Sydney’s big policy issues. He advised on the design of the Greater Sydney Commission, based on his experience of negotiating new powers for the London mayor in 2005 to 2006. He was a founding member of the Federal Cities Reference Group in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet of Australia.
Tim’s columns on public policy, housing and urban issues have featured in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Daily Telegraph and the Fifth Estate and he is a regular on radio and TV. Tim has written a column since 2000 in the UK’s main urban regeneration journal and was between 1998 and 2000 a weekly columnist in “The Scotsman” paper.
Tim is an Adjunct Professor at Western Sydney University. He was educated at Bryncelynnog Comp, Peterhouse College Cambridge, Merton College Oxford, University College Cardiff, Glamorgan Polytechnic and the Inns of Court School of Law.