Roger Kitchen has been involved in community development for more than thirty years. He was a neighbourhood community worker with Milton Keynes Development Corporation on their earliest new housing areas in the 1970’s and co-founder and General Manager for 11 years of Living Archive. This organisation gained an international reputation for its pioneering and innovative work in using local history and the arts as a means of assisting, community development and regeneration.

Roger’s skills include engaging communities in decision-making and visioning, project design and management, successful bid writing, oral history training and digital archiving.

Roger has had considerable experience in engaging communities in visioning their future. In the Milton Keynes area this has been done in Market Town Healthchecks in Wolverton and Stony Stratford and in Parish Appraisals in New Bradwell and West Bletchley. He is currently (2006-7) acting as a consultant on a Place Check in the Woughton area of Milton Keynes.

The Wolverton vision that emerged from the Future Wolverton Health Check has been used as an example of good practice by the Countryside Agency and the high level of community involvement in this process was partly responsible for Wolverton gaining Beacon Town status.