Julie Anne Cowans

Julie was born in Easington, County Durham, but her mother’s family was from near York, and it was in York that Julie made her home.

Her father, Arthur Brewerton, was a miner for 35 years and Betty, her mother, managed a chain of shops.

Julie went to Durham University and then took a post-graduate qualification in housing at New College, Durham. It took her to Yorkshire and three years in the housing department at York City Council, which she followed with 10 years as a special adviser on urban policy to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

There, she is remembered for her straight-talking practicality and ability to get on with people. She is credited with encouraging the foundation to make practical use of its academic-led research efforts, and she led on the development of designing homes so that they can be adapted to the occupiers’ changing needs; in 1999 she edited a book on designing “lifetime homes”.

In January that year she produced the pamphlet Inclusive housing: The role of low cost homeownership, and in 2006 she co-edited the book Rethinking Social Housing which made an important contribution to the debate on housing in the UK. She worked on ways to create places which are well designed and managed and which can provide housing choices for all sections of society.

Also in 2006, and as a result of her contribution to planning, she became an honorary member of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

She had met David Cowans at a conference in Brighton in February, 1997, and in August they were married on a beach in Fiji.

They first lived in Harrogate, moving to York eight years ago.

Julie’s interest in planning took her into issues related to social housing, and in 2003 she became the founding director of the housing and planning consultancy, “theplaceteam”, which initiated an all-embracing approach to planning, housing, regeneration, management and marketing.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago, and is survived by her husband David and their children Melissa, Tom and Eve.