A half-century of town planning: Newham’s Russell Dodge celebrates 50 years in the industry
Friday 25th July, 2025
PIC: Russell Dodge with Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) president Helen Fadipe MBE
A stalwart of the town planning scene in Cornwall, Russell Dodge recently celebrated an impressive 50 years as a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute. How does he feel about chalking up a half-century? “Ancient!” he laughs. “I don’t think many people stick it out as long as I have.”
His first job was in town planning with North Cornwall District Council in 1976, moving over to Carrick District Council to work on its economic development strategy, including handling the impact of the then privatisation of Falmouth Docks.
In 1987, he launched Business Location Services and its sister company BLS Estates - two of the first to inhabit what would become Newham Industrial Estate - in an office he built himself and still occupies to this day.
“I even put the road in – I think most of Newham was done by me in the 1980s,” he says, proudly. “Basically, I bought one of the plots back. It was one of the first B1 office developments in Cornwall, predating the boom at the turn of the millennium.”
On display are photos of builds he is most proud of. These include Watson Marlow in Falmouth, a benchmark in environmental sustainability and one of the first to gain the BREEAM sustainable building certification that is now a requirement for grant funding; and in 2001, an £85m project planning a cabling route for Cable & Wireless, laying fibre-optic cables from Porthcurno and Bude all the way through southern England to central London, for which a thank-you letter is pinned to the wall.
During the final decades of European Union membership, BLS channelled Convergence and Objective 1 funding for Cornwall and Devon, including development projects providing workspaces, and environmental installations such as wind farms and renewable energy projects.
And yet it sounds like a double-edged sword. Ask him what has changed the most in his time, and he answers: “The system has become so complex. Biodiversity and sustainability are commendable, but there is a housing crisis because we aren’t building enough homes, or the industrial units that provide employment for the people who might live in them.”
These days, you as likely to find him fighting planning refusals on behalf of his clients. These include Church View Farm in Camborne and Pendower Beach House Hotel (the pink one) near Veryan.
In 2013, Russell became a founder member of Newham Business Improvement District (BID). “I was one of the original committee members,” he says proudly. “The BID has been instrumental in creating Newham as a business community and promoting its identity through the landscaping, the signage – even this very page.
“Then there are the benefits of having a voice to put pressure on Cornwall Council, for example when there were plans to narrow the road into the estate. Our lobbying resulted in the road being narrowed 30cm less than intended which has potentially prevented a serious accident.”
It would seem his fellow Newham business owners agree, having voted overwhelmingly in favour of a third BID term in a record-breaking ballot. All those who voted, voted ‘yes’ - something that has not happened before in more than 1,000 UK BID ballots held for 347 occupier BIDs over the past 20 years.
At 73, would Russell ever consider retiring? Apparently not. “I must be mad to still be working – but it keeps me young(ish), and I do enjoy it.”