Emma James MSc FIPM
Emma James is a placemaking consultant with over 20 years’ experience spanning regeneration, development, and community engagement.
Understanding the priorities of the public sector, the ambitions of the private sector, and the lived experiences of communities, Emma creates authentic place strategies that deliver meaningful and lasting impact.
She has advised private developers on mixed-use developments in town and city centres, supported local authorities as an Expert for the Government’s High Street Task Force (2019–2024), and has worked with communities using Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) principles to co-create positive change. With a Masters degree in Place Management and Leadership, and as a Fellow of the Institute of Place Management, Emma combines technical expertise with a collaborative, place-first approach.
Emma’s passion is building trust and collaboration between private and public sectors and communities, creating places that not only thrive economically but also nurture belonging, wellbeing, and local pride.
Emma’s specialisms
Emma’s blogs
Emma James explores how designing places with children and young people can create more welcoming high streets, towns and cities.
Emma’s project examples
Great Northern Warehouse, Manchester
Emma led the development and delivery of the place strategy for the Great Northern Warehouse, a landmark mixed-use site in Manchester city centre awaiting large-scale redevelopment. The challenge was to ensure the site remained economically viable while also building social value and preparing audiences for its future transformation.
Working with the asset owner, local authority, tenants, and community partners, Emma curated a programme that combined robust asset management with meaningful engagement. This included nurturing independent businesses through meanwhile uses, creating high-quality public realm and family-friendly play spaces, and embedding art and culture at the heart of the offer. Alongside this, an Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) approach fostered local ownership through grassroots projects and partnerships.
The result was a strategy that safeguarded commercial return, strengthened community connections, and established an authentic direction of travel – giving people emotional attachment to the site long before redevelopment begins.
Branding Manchester’s Medieval Quarter
Emma was commissioned to lead the place branding process for Manchester’s Medieval Quarter, home to some of the city’s most important cultural, historic, and visitor assets including the Cathedral, National Football Museum, and Chetham’s School of Music. With limited budget available, the brief was to create more than just a logo – instead shaping a holistic brand strategy that reflected the full spectrum of visitor experiences, from heritage and culture to dining, green space, and major events.
Emma facilitated a multi-stakeholder process which started with the establishment of the Medieval Quarter Forum, aligning a group of diverse public, private, and community partners around a shared purpose. Drawing on place branding principles, the strategy did deliver a visual brand for the area, but more importantly established a way for stakeholders to work together to improve the visitor experience, and to raise the quarter’s profile with both partners and customers.
The result was a unified narrative and implementation plan that integrated branding across all touchpoints – from signage and digital channels to programming, partnerships, and customer experience – ensuring a consistent, authentic identity that will strengthen the Quarter’s profile locally and internationally.