Jess Garratt is a qualified town planner with 20 years of experience in statutory planning in the public and private sectors. Jess started her career in the private sector while she was still a student, working in town planning and surveying consultancies in Brisbane, including Col Higginson & Associates and Goodwin Midson & Partners. There she managed a wide range of development applications for clients including greenfield subdivisions, medium density residential projects and a variety of commercial, mixed use and industrial developments in a number of Queensland local authorities. In addition to her work in South East Queensland, she also provided services to rural and remote local governments providing development assessment functions and drafting and review of IPA planning schemes. After moving to Toowoomba in 2005, she gained valuable experience over 10 years at Toowoomba Regional Council in Development Assessment as a Senior Planner. In this role, she managed a wide range of complex development applications and major projects, including Queensland Investment Corporation’s Grand Central Redevelopment and several controversial applications that resulted in Planning and Environment Court appeals. In addition to her core business in development assessment, she also provided input on a number of local planning projects, internal process reviews, planning scheme amendments and the drafting and roll-out of the Toowoomba Regional Planning Scheme 2012. Since moving back to the private sector in 2015, Jess now enjoys working part-time delivering high quality consultancy services whilst juggling family commitments. In recent years, she has successfully negotiated development approvals for use cases across the residential, commercial, community and industrial sectors, as well as for a range of land subdivisions.