Director
Our director is Sharyn Briggs, BA, FPIA, CPP.
Sharyn Briggs is a highly experienced urban and social planner, who formed her own firm, Briggs and Mortar, in 1990 in response to the perceived gap in provision of expert specialised social planning, social impact assessment and community consultation skills. Sharyn Briggs was an Associate Director of Sydney based firm, Planning Workshop, for nine years, and a Director of BBC Consulting Planners for seven years. She has over 40 years of experience working as a planning consultant. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Australian Planning Institute (now Planning Institute of Australia) in 2000 in recognition of her contribution to social planning in Australia.
Sharyn Briggs has a particular interest in developing socially sustainable communities, stemming from specialisation in the preparation of over 40 Social/Community Plans for whole local government areas (urban and rural), greenfields areas and consolidating areas. Many of these studies have been concerned with community health and wellbeing, and the creation of communities that are safe, equitable, vibrant and attractive.
Sharyn has long had a specialisation in social infrastructure planning, particularly with developing and applying benchmarks for social infrastructure, including the pioneering and leading work in this field in Queensland. She jointly authored Implementation Guideline No 5 to the South East Queensland (SEQ) Regional Plan – Social Infrastructure Planning Guidelines for the Office of Urban Management, which won a state and national planning award, and later updated these guidelines (jointly) for the Department of Infrastructure and Planning, and extended their application to areas outside SEQ, especially regional, rural and coastal communities, and resource communities.
Sharyn Briggs is an expert in social impact assessment. She sat on the Social Impacts Advisory Committee of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. She jointly reviewed the Commonwealth Social Impact Assessment legislation for the Environmental Protection Authority and has been involved in the preparation of various health and social impact policies for Councils. She has undertaken a great many Social Impact Assessments for a wide range of development types.
Sharyn has had considerable experience in housing policy development and housing needs assessment in both NSW and Queensland. She has prepared a number of affordable and aged housing studies for Local Governments, social assessments of proposed aged housing developments and a large number of housing needs assessments. She has also in recent years increasingly been involved in assessing the impacts of resource development in relation to housing.
Sharyn Briggs has a high level of experience and a long history in the design and conduct of community engagement. She has undertaken public participation programmes for a wide variety of often controversial projects. She has significant experience in facilitation, the conduct of seminars, workshops and meetings, and questionnaire design and analysis in social research. She has undertaken advanced training with the Conflict Resolution Network, and is a skilled facilitator, presenter and communicator.
Other Skills
Research Assistance
Briggs & Mortar Pty Ltd has research assistants on call in the areas of:
- Demographic analysis and population projections
- Modelling for social infrastructure benchmarking and funding
- Literature searches
- Organisation of community consultations
- Web surveys and e-consultation
- Other tasks as required.
This assistance can reduce costs to the client in undertaking basic research. However all work is guided, supervised and reviewed by the Director.
Complementary Organisations
Briggs & Mortar Pty Ltd holds good working relationships with a number of complementary highly skilled individuals and firms, some of whom are mentioned in the descriptions of key projects.
Many of our projects have been undertaken jointly with these colleagues (see projects listed as ‘joint’) and we acknowledge the role and value of our relationships with these individuals and firms.
Where appropriate, Briggs & Mortar will join with or sub-contract complementary or specialist skills to build a team best suited to the needs of a client.