Nigel Moor

Nigel Moor ( born 1942 ) was born during the second world war in Glasgow, then evacuated to Tyneside and via the Midlands, Kenya and London now lives with his wife Christine and their cat Sylvester in a converted chapel in the Cotswolds. Their three daughters are now grown up and live away.It was once owned by the Baptists who when selling the building inserted a covenant regarding the good behaviour of the occupiers. " So far I think we have kept to the restrictions " says Nigel "but I cannot vouch for those who came before us".A career as a town planner has led Nigel to many parts of the world ( he worked on the new town Dodoma in Tanzania )and he still has a flourishing consultancy. He has also been active in local politics and was Mayor of Wallingford, a historic market town in the Thames Valley. But writing is his real passion. "Politics and planning fascinate me and England is going through another physical transformation, similar in scale to that of the Victorian period. This frightens so many people but the ability to accept change is part of the DNA of the English, why we spread all over the Empire and then the Commonwealth, and why English is the second choice language of the rest of the world."His latest book " The Look and Shape of England " ( published 2010 ) explores the politics behind the country's building and development during the last hundred years ,since statutory planning control began.He plans a second edition in 2013 which will chart the policies of the new Coalition Government and the physical impact of the 2012 Olympics in London, as well as looking at what has been happening in cities such as Liverpool, Plymouth, and Newcastle - Gateshead.