Elle Clouston joins HillPDA’s Social & Economic Planning team

HillPDA welcomes Elle Clouston as Senior Consultant to our Social and Economic Planning team. Sarah Hill is delighted to continue to build the planning team with such a high calibre of person to support the range of major policy, urban renewal and strategic projects we have recently been engaged to do.

Elle is a Strategic Planner having recently joined HillPDA after seven years working in the public and private sector in NSW and Queensland. Elle’s gained exposure to a broad diversity of planning policy work, having undertaken advisory services for various government organisations across Australia. Elle’s commercial intuition, passion to improve planning practice and intrinsic understanding of local centre performance, enables her to deliver leading practice planning solutions.

Elle spent three years working in the Urban Renewal division of Australia’s largest Council, gaining extensive experience planning and determining solutions to best facilitate sustainable, realistic and feasible outcomes for local centres. Elle understands the commercial realities of development projects, subsequently aiming to recommend more viable solutions through her policy work. This intellect is transferred into advocating for strong local planning, ensuring centre performance is assessed on its cumulative merits with all recommendations being holistic and realistic.

Elle contributed to the policy reform agenda of Queensland Government, promoting planning practices that facilitate viable outcomes and stimulate economic development. Having worked with the development industry, Elle knows the contributing factors of development feasibility and is able to advise on the most appropriate planning solutions to stimulate viable outcomes. Elle’s expertise, ranges from basic due diligence property services to complex Environmental Impact Statements, code drafting, community engagement and leading practice research projects.

Elle values strong collaboration and partnership with clients, sub-consultants and the community, having successfully project managed various large scale development projects and undertaken community engagement for complex local centre masterplans. Elle’s an accredited member of the International Association for Public Participation Australasia (IAP2), holds a Cert IV in Human Resource Management and is an active committee member of the UDIA Planning Policy Committee, NSW Planning Institute Australia Young Planners Committee, Property Council Academy Retail Committee and is on the Editorial Team for the PIA New Planner magazine.

Sarah Hill, Director of HillPDA said of the appointment “As a champion of the art and science of planning, I was delighted to meet Elle who displayed all of the qualities and initiatives epitomised by emerging talent in our profession. I look forward to continuing to build the calibre and strength of the HillPDA Planning Team with her.“