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Podcast episode 119: Hitting the High Notes - Nick Kilby

Episode number 119 of the podcast is available now via this link or from iTunes and Spotify.

In Hitting the High Notes episodes like this one I chat to preeminent figures in the planning and property sectors about the six planning permissions or projects that helped to shape them as professionals. And, so that Listeners can get to know people a little better personally, for every project or stage of their career I also ask my guests for a piece of music that reminds them of that period. It's town planning’s equivalent of Desert Island Discs.

Unlike Desert Island Discs you will not hear any of that music during the episode because using commercially-licensed music without the copyright holders permission or a very expensive PRS licensing agreement could land me in hot water, so, when you have finished listening, you will have to make do with YouTube videos and a Spotify playlist, links to which you will find in the description.


My guest for this episode is Nick Kilby, founder and now Chief Executive Officer of Cratus Group, who kindly took the time to meet me at Soho Radio Studios in early April 2024.

Nick trained as a Stage Manager and Lighting Designer at Mountview Theatre School and worked in the early 1980s as a stage manager at the Edinburgh Festival and the National Theatre. Having produced his own shows Nick then got into cinema management, including the first Imax at the Trocadero Centre. He then got into politics and in 2006 was elected on to the Royal Borough of Kingston Council, which led to being asked about campaigning and lobbying. After being involved with the Abbey Mills ‘Mega’ Mosque at the end of the 2000s Nick then founded Cratus.

We talk about the keys to successful engagement and the role of the councillor in that. We talk about how consultants are only as good as the client lets them be; about what it really means to build communities; and we talk about localism and a certain Mr Eric Pickles.

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