Nick has a professional property career stretching over 50 years. He specialises in fund asset management for financial institution funds and private individuals. This almost always involves the promotion of sustainable development projects meeting community needs; he is currently responsible for some 20 residential development projects in the UK, several being very large.
Since Nick became Chief Land Agent to the Prudential Corporation in 1979, with a portfolio of 35,000 hectares, he has been responsible for putting together teams, consisting of the most suitable professionals to undertake both major development projects and the disposals of large and very valuable rural properties, often with major development potential. He has worked closely with the King’s Foundation (formally the Prince’s Foundation) for over thirty years and has used their services and those of his then fellow ‘Enrolled Practitioners’ for his clients on numerous occasions; similarly, he has been brought in as a consultant to the Foundation many times. He sat (2013 to 2020) on the External Advisory Board of Oxford University’s PhD and Masters’ Courses in Sustainable Urban Development.
His deep-rooted passion for moving projects and organisations to become truly sustainable is at last becoming the mainstream objective of many. He is well experienced in this, having promoted the essential need for sustainability for more than thirty years. His own company has now won five Gold Awards in the Suffolk County Council Carbon Reduction Challenge and he has led it to be one of the Top One Hundred Green Businesses in the East of England. Since 2005, Nick has studied at the Hockerton Housing Project, taking forward the cost-effective research work of Prof Brenda Vale.
CV:
- Director 1991 and then Managing Director 1992-1995 of Landmatch PLC
- National Director, Prudential Agricultural and Board of Prudential Property Services Ltd, 1989–1991
- Chief Land Agent, Prudential Corporation 1979-89, responsible for 35,000 hectares
- Director of Administration, Prudential Property Division from 1985-1989
- CEO Prudential in-hand farming company from 1980 and latterly Chairman,1996-2002
- Member of the Council of English Nature 1993-20020
- Board member of the Harwich Haven Authority 1998-2000
- Council of the National Trust 1998-2000
- Trustee of the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group 2003-2008
- President of Rural Practice Division of RICS 1991-92
- Represented financial institutions on Environment Committee of the CLA 1994-2021, CLA Council 1980-1997, Chairman of CLA Suffolk branch 2000-01.
Present:
- Founder and MD of Woolley Project Management Ltd since 1995
- UK Fund Asset Manager for the Zurich Group of Switzerland, for two strategic rural portfolios
- Closely involved with the King’s Foundation, formerly the Prince’s Foundation, since 1990
- Academician of the Academy of Urbanism and invited Awards Assessor
- Chairman of the Freckenham Neighbourhood Plan Group
- Studied cost-effective Zero-carbon performing building construction (inspired by Prof B Vale) since 2005. He has now built his own, Zero-Carbon performing home, with an EPC of 134, at no greater cost per sq metre than a non-eco home.
- Undertaking research into nature-based ways to overcome Nutrient Neutrality, promoting integrated SuDs, rainwater harvesting, BNG and assisting the Home Builders Federation in its quest for improving the construction of more sustainable new homes.
- Appointed 2024 to the Parliamentary, cross-Party Policy Liaison Group for Future Homes.