Christopher Howes


Sir Christopher Kingston Howes is a British specialist in the study of land and buildings, with a career in the public, private and academic sectors.

Biography

The younger son of Leonard Howes OBE and Marion Howes, he was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, and the University of London, where he graduated BSc in 1965. He is also a fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors 1966, and holds a M.Phil from the University of Reading, 1975. Hon DLitt from the University of East Anglia.
Howes's career has spanned the public and private sectors. In 1965-1967 Valuation and Planning Department, the Greater London Council. from 1967-1978 he was Steward and Honorary Surveyor the Dean and Chapter of Norwich Cathedral. He has served as an adviser to Local Authorities. He was a member of Norwich City Council, and a magistrate in Norfolk. He was a founder member of the Theatre Royal Trust, the Cotman Housing Association and the Norwich Third World Centre.
He was Deputy Director of Land Economy and then Director of the Land and Property Division for the Department of the Environment from 1979 to 1989, Visiting Professor at University College London 1983 to 2001; Chairman of the World Land Policy Conference 1984, and the OECD's Urban Policy Group 1985.
From 1992-1999 he was a trustee for The Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture; from 1995-1998 a Member of the Secretary of State for the Environment's Thames Advisory Board, and a Member of the Court of Advisers of St Paul's Cathedral.
From 1989 to 2001 he was the Second Commissioner and Chief Executive of the Crown Estate in the United Kingdom. It includes large area of Central London including Regent Street, over half of UK's forests, hundreds of farms and other rural estates, and the whole of the British seabed between the coast and the twelve-mile international limit. In 2006, the annual income of the Crown Estate was around £200 million. He also served as a member of the Princes Council, the Duchy of Cornwall, and as a Council member of the Duchy of Lancaster.
From 2001 to 2017 he has been an adviser to Barclays Capital and a member of the Advisory Board and Senior Adviser to Barclays Private Bank. He is a member of the Council of the Duchy of Cornwall; Deputy Chairman of Howard de Walden Estates; Adviser to the Marcol Group; a member of the Investment Committee of St Paul's Cathedral; a board member of the British Architectural Trust; a trustee of the Suffolk Historic Churches Trust; a trustee of the Norfolk Archaeological Trust, and patron of the Heatherley School of Fine Art.

Career outline