Emma Dent Coad has been a Docomomo UK member and Working Party member since the 1990s. Emma was born in Chelsea, the youngest of six children in an Anglo-Spanish family. She studied design and architectural history at the Royal College of Art. Spending most of her working life writing for design and architectural magazines, Emma specialised in 20th century social housing, planning and architecture. She has written three books and contributed to countless others. When elected to parliament in 2017 she was half way through (now suspended) PhD research at Liverpool University School of Architecture, on architecture and political ideology under the Spanish dictator Franco; she continues to contribute on specialist subjects when time permits, with articles, lectures and academic seminars.

Emma’s interest in well-planned social housing extends across all housing tenures, where neighbourhoods can be improved by having all the everyday essentials within reasonable walking distance, along with decent transport links. All these amenities are suffering existential threat by the rising cost of rent and business rates, with high streets especially under pressure after the worst of the pandemic; our high streets need rethinking.