Meet the Team
GUY FRENCH: Founder
Guy grew up farming and runs his own diversified farms. He's spent 20 years figuring out how to make the planning system work for the people still doing it. Most planning consultants understand the rules. Guy understands what it costs when the rules work against you. That is not something you learn from a textbook.
He has spent 20 years finding planning solutions that other consultants did not know existed such as new agricultural buildings, farm tracks, reservoirs, commercial developments, residential conversions. The full picture, not just the easy wins.
Farmers don't need someone who understands planning. They need someone who understands farming and planning.
EMILY FRENCH: Founder
Emily doesn't keep Foxes Rural running. She keeps it sharp. Most businesses have someone who manages the diary, chases the deadlines, and makes sure nothing falls through the gap. Emily does all of that before 9am.
She runs the CRM, owns the marketing, edits the content, manages the accounts, and still finds time to bring 20 years of hands-on farm diversification experience to every conversation the team has with a client. That is not a job description. That is a skill set most firms would need 4 people to cover.
The operation doesn't work without the person who runs it.
MELANIE BINGHAM-WALLIS: Planning Director
Would you want a fairly confident surgeon?
You wouldn't want a surgeon who was fairly confident. You'd want one who'd done it a hundred times, knew every complication before it arrived, and had already decided what to do if it did. That's Mel on a planning application.
Every case that leaves Foxes Rural has been through her. Every argument tested. Every officer concern closed before it opens.
Fairly confident doesn't live here.
MORWENNA SAUNDERS: Farm Planning Consultant
Some consultants make farmers feel like they're interrupting.
Morwenna makes them feel like they've finally found the right room.
She is the first voice a client hears at Foxes Rural. And from that first call, the complexity doesn't disappear — but it stops feeling unmanageable.
Not because she softens the message. She doesn't. But a farmer who understands exactly where they stand makes better decisions, asks better questions, and builds a better case.
That's not incidental to what we do. That's the foundation everything else is built on.
PARISHA PATEL: Office Manager
Planning consultancies are judged on their decisions. What they're rarely judged on is everything that had to go right behind the scenes to get there.
Parisha is the reason things go right.
She runs the back office at Foxes Rural by managing applications, keeping cases moving, and making sure nothing sits in a queue longer than it should. In a firm where deadlines are measured in days and a missed notification can cost a client months, that role isn't administrative. It's critical.
Dynamic is an overused word. For Parisha it's accurate as she moves fast, thinks ahead, and keeps a practice running at a pace that clients feel without ever seeing the engine room.
CHERYSE CABA: Accounts Manager
Every planning win Foxes Rural delivers has Cheryse's fingerprints on it.
Not on the application. On everything that makes the application possible.
While the planning team is focused on LPAs, prior approvals, and officer negotiations, Cheryse is making sure the business that delivers all of it runs without a single loose thread. Accounts, tax, corporate finance — handled by someone who has spent a career doing this at the highest level.
Most firms outsource this. Foxes Rural brought it in house.
SOPHIE BOYES: Marketing
Sophie keeps the Foxes Rural brand looking the part by undertaking case studies and writing the blogs for the company.
