Andy Goldring

Andy has been thinking about and practising permaculture design since his first design course in 1993. He has used permaculture in many different contexts and with lots of different groups. After training he helped with permaculture projects in Leeds, community projects and private home/garden projects, and national projects as a volunteer with the Permaculture Association. Andy has been the CEO of the Permaculture Association since 1999, and his main body of permaculture design work in recent years has focused on the design of the Association itself.

He has a wealth of facilitation experience, and has been teaching permaculture courses since 1995. He has contributed to many books and magazines and was the editor of ‘Permaculture – a teacher’s guide’.

He lives in a Victorian terraced house which he has been retro-fitting since 2000, and is just about finished. He cycles to work and enjoys time off working his allotment.

Luke Justice

Luke grew up in a co-housing community called Hockerton Housing Project which is founded on permaculture design principles. From these early years of experience and inspiration Luke has had a strong conviction in the potential of sustainable design to meet our needs. He found permaculture in 2014 and has been crafting a permaculture livelihood ever since. Initially he applied design to; several community gardens, living in a housing co-operative, volunteering with Green Action Society and working for Hyde Park Source delivering community activities/designing new projects. This led him into urban agriculture and he was a market gardener at Meanwood Valley Urban Farm for 5 years. He has now returned to Hockerton Housing Project and works on a variety of community, agriculture and renewables projects. Alongside the practical application of permaculture he is passionate about sharing skills and knowledge with people on their own learning journey.

Joy Justice

Joy first studied permaculture before going to spend time working with a local organisation in Cameroon that was practicing permaculture in urban and rural settings there. She realised the value of taking time to observe and interact with our surroundings before jumping in with ideas. Subsequent experiences in Cameroon prompted her to work on supporting the people and relationships in land-based projects and other initiatives that involve people working passionately together.

She has worked for the last few years with community climate action groups across Leeds, as well as providing facilitation, mediation and training to multiple Leeds-based co-operatives and co-housing projects. She currently lives at Hockerton Housing Project in Nottinghamshire and works as a mediator, facilitator and celebrant.

Carla Moss

Carla has a Diploma in Applied Permaculture and is an Assessment level tutor for the Diploma course. She is a trustee of the Permaculture Association.

She is passionate about using small scale solutions to make big differences to everyday life in her own home and supports others to do the same through her work with Greening Life.

Joe Atkinson

Joe completed his PDC in 2007 in Leeds. Since then he's attended permaculture teacher training courses in England and Denmark, and taught on design courses in Leeds, Durham, Sheffield and Nottingham and Ukraine. He has been actively involved in the European permaculture network and is a member of the Permaculture Council of Europe. Joe has a particular interest in eco buildings. He holds an MSc Architecture: Advanced Environmental & Energy Studies from the Centre for Alternative Technology and was a contributing author for their first ZeroCarbonBritain report. He lives at Lilac (Low Impact Living Affordable Community): a co-housing project comprising 20 homes made of timber and straw bales. He sits on the advisory board for an academic research project examining ways to enable building occupants to adopt more sustainable behaviours.

Laura Smith

Laura has spent many years teaching biological sciences in secondary and higher education. She has recently completed her apprenticeship training at the Permaculture Association. Completing the PDC course was a transformative event for Laura and has helped her make progressive livelihood changes which support her values and passion for growing. Laura has an allotment and lives in Lilac, a straw bale intentional community which supports living in line with permaculture ethics.

Helen White

Helen first came across permaculture when she got a job with the Permaculture Association as their Finance worker in 2008. She was, and still is, a keen gardener and shares an allotment with neighbours. She cycles or walks rather than using the car for short journeys, likes to buy local, seasonal food, and helped to get their (now thriving) community association started 15 years ago.

Finding out about Permaculture, and then doing the PDC (in 2010), was a great experience for Helen – meeting lots of like-minded people, and giving her a framework to look at how she lives and how to design what she's doing.  She did a Training of Teachers in 2012 and has been teaching on PDCs since then, as well as running one day Introduction to Permaculture courses.  She recently got her Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design, and her designs are focussed towards people care and fair shares.  She is also a yoga teacher.