Board

Neil May
Chair

Neil was an academic and also a film maker, before becoming a building labourer in 1989 for 4 years, and then setting up his own award winning ecological and conservation building company.
In 1999 Neil set up Natural Building Technologies (NBT), a company that sells and develops ecological building materials and systems for the mainstream construction industry in the UK. Neil is now Managing and Technical Director. Neil also runs NBT Consult which is a network of sustainable building experts.

Jon Bootland
Board Member

Jon Bootland is Director of the Sustainable Development Foundation, which works to accelerate the uptake of sustainability in the built environment. The SDFoundation particularly focuses on building clients and funders, with current programmes including SHINE - the learning network for sustainable healthcare buildings, and The Good Homes Alliance.
Jon is also an Associate at Forum for the Future, an Advisor to the Academy for Sustainable Communities, and a Special Advisor for Sponge (the sustainability network for young professionals).

Jon was previously an Associate Director at CIRIA (the Construction Industry Research and Information Association), where he led on the development of their sustainable construction work, and prior to that was Director of Regeneration and Policy at The Prince's Foundation.

Jonathan Kingerlee
Board Member

Jonathan Kingerlee is Chief Executive of the Kingerlee Group of companies. Based in Oxford, the Group is a fifth generation family business operating in the construction and property development sectors. Construction projects undertaken include work for clients such as schools, universities and colleges, health authorities, housing associations along with corporate bodies and private individuals. Property development is mainly in the quality residential sector with brown field and conversion projects of particular interest. Other business interests include property and equity investment portfolios, bespoke joinery and the supply of environmentally friendly and low carbon building materials.

Ben Pentreath
Board Member

Ben Pentreath is director of Working Group, a London-based design company that works closely with developers to improve the quality of new housing in the UK. Ben has designed a number of buildings at Poundbury, Dorset, and won the design competition for Phase B of Upton, Northampton. He has worked as Urban and Architectural Designer at the Prince's Foundation and for five years at Fairfax & Sammons Architects in New York.

Ben studied History of Architecture at the University of Edinburgh and at The Prince of Wales's Institute in London. With Marianne Cusato and Leon Krier, he is the author of Get Your House Right: a builder's guide to avoiding common mistakes in traditional Architecture to be published in the United States in 2007. He has lectured at the Prince's Foundation, the Courtauld Institute, University of Greenwich, University of the West of England, and in the US.

Mark Swan
Board Member

Mark has been working within the construction industry for 24 years. He has a carpentry and joinery background, an HND in Building, and also took time out to study for a degree in social policy. He worked for two of the major house builders, before setting up Swan country Homes.
Swan Country Homes is an innovative construction company with a passion for sustainability. Recently SCH won a national competition for a zero carbon development in St Austell's Cornwall.

Hank Dittmar
Board Member

The Prince's Foundation is an educational charity which exists to improve the quality of people's lives by teaching and practising timeless and ecological ways of planning, designing and building.

Peter Halsall
Vice-Chair

Pete Halsall is a sustainable community developer, with a background in property development, construction and environmental engineering. He is co-founder and Managing Director of BioRegional Quintain Ltd., where he has successfully led the company in securing developments at Middlesbrough (development agreement with EP) and Brighton (JV with Crest Nicholson). Pete is passionate about regeneration, sustainability and architecture.
He is a graduate of Bath University and has worked in the UK, Spain and the US.

Kim Slowe
Board Member

A former Royal Naval helicopter pilot and frigate captain Kim Slowe set up Cornhill Estates in 2000 and now builds approximately 100 EcoHomes each year. In 2006 he set up the sustainable technologies solutions company EcoFirst (www.ecofirst.net) which supplies and installs the complete range of sustainable technologies to builders/developers and existing homeowners. He lives in Poundbury, Dorchester and is one of the developers on the Prince of Wales Poundbury estate.