Councillor Ben Smith

Ben Smith has been a Northamptonshire County Councillor since 1987 and is Cabinet Member for Environment. He is Deputy Chairman of the Police Authority, a director of the River Nene Regional Park Company and a member of the Environment Agency's Anglian (Northern) Flood Defence Committee. Ben is an IDeA Peer Member and Peer Mentor and has undertaken consultancy work at a number of councils in England and Wales.

He is a former member of the East Midlands Regional Planning Forum, the LGA Environment & Regeneration Executive and LGA Brownfield Land Task Group. After training as a landscape architect Ben returned to university to obtain an MSc in Environmental Resources. Between 1972 and 1985 he was the Chief Landscape Architect for Northampton Development Corporation and between 1985 and 2009 he was the principal of Benjamin Smith Design Associates. In 2002 he attended the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg and was the only councillor on the official UK delegation.