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Before joining the erstwhile Newcastle Polytechnic, Christopher worked for a private practice in Liverpool followed by the Leeds and Newcastle offices of the Property Services Agency (PSA), the former agency responsible for all government buildings. The private practice experience was largely residential, including defect identification on a 16^th Century manor house, refurbishment of Victorian terrace housing and residential structural surveys. In contrast, experience with the PSA was almost entirely with commercial and military buildings, with responsibility for building and public health installation defect identification on a mixture of complicated, historic and specialist buildings and structures.

Christopher joined Newcastle Polytechnic to be part of the team responsible for setting up the Building Surveying degree and seen the degree grow to maturity while the Polytechnic became 51����. His areas of expertise are the history of buildings, defect identification, including flood damage to buildings and fire safety engineering, and historic building conservation. His current research theme is issues with effective conservation of functional buildings from the Industrial Revolution, using railway signal boxes as an exemplar.

Outside of work, Christopher is a member of Friends of the National Railway Museum, goes mountain climbing and plays the flute.