PlaceSense works at the intersections where places are made or lost
Between policy and delivery.
Between public and private.
Between local and national.
These are the places where ambition either connects to reality or quietly disappears. Most organisations live on one side of these divides.
PlaceSense works across all of them.
Policy and delivery
Strategies don't deliver themselves. The gap between policy intent and operational reality is where good programmes go wrong. Our founder has made that full journey: writing the guidance, building the process, making the decisions. That's what PlaceSense is built on.
Public and Private
Public clients and private partners too often talk past each other. We know both sides of that conversation from the inside: local government, central government, major contracting, global consultancy. We know what each gets wrong about the other.
Local and National
National policy needs local delivery. Local ambition needs national support. We translate between them; not just in how programmes are managed but in how they are framed. The right frame often makes the difference between a project that stalls and one that secures the support it needs.
What this looks like in practice
The work PlaceSense does sits across four areas: building the investment case, defining and protecting value, setting up programmes to succeed, and helping public and private sector organisations work better together. Most engagements draw on more than one of them.
Andrew Alsbury - Founder
I've spent my career trying to understand why good intentions don't always become good outcomes; and what it takes to change that.
That career has taken me across the whole system: local government, central government, a national contractor, a global consultancy. I've written policy and delivered against it. I've helped private sector organisations understand how public clients actually make decisions. I've briefed ministers, advised expert panels, and worked alongside delivery partners trying to make national intentions work locally.
I founded PlaceSense because that breadth of perspective is genuinely rare; and genuinely useful at the moments that matter most.
Selected Experience
Building Safety (MHCLG)
After Grenfell, I worked at the centre of the national building safety response. I helped develop the evidence-based guidance issued to building owners and worked directly with the Expert Panel and the Industry Response Group. When the £1bn Building Safety Fund was announced, I mobilised the full eligibility and compliance process within six weeks and made decisions on over 1,300 applications.
Department for Education
The state of England’s school estate wasn’t being taken seriously at the centre. I delivered and analysed the results from Europe’s largest condition survey: 18,830 schools. The data reshaped how senior officials understood the problem and became the foundation for successive rounds of national school investment.
National Galleries Scotland
A national collection facility was struggling to make its case as an art storage problem. I reframed it around cultural access, regional equity and the regeneration of Granton. That shift in thinking is what unlocked the support. The Scottish Government allocated £56m in the Spending Review.
Let’s talk
If you’re working on something that sits across these intersections, a short conversation is usually the best place to start.