Roland Jeffery
Projects Advisor in England, The Prince’s Regeneration Trust, The Built Environment
I’m Roland Jeffery and I’m the Projects Advisor in England at The Prince’s Regeneration Trust. Helping groups and owners restore historic buildings is enormously satisfying – not least because the process can be slow and painstaking, so when you finally get there is a sense of relief as well as of achievement!
For me, this kind of work is a second career, following on from developing social housing for housing associations. My best known project before this job was the restoration of Hawksmoor’s Christ Church in Spitalfields, London, one of the best known baroque churches in Europe. I also led the team that saved Shoreditch Town Hall, a less famous building but a genuinely community-run business. In some ways the skills are the same: money, buildings, planners, etc.
At The Prince’s Regeneration Trust we target work at historic buildings in areas needing regeneration, so our schemes are often beacons of optimism in areas needing an uplift. I love architecture of all periods, but am a great fan of the best 20th Century architecture – so often unfairly maligned.
