Michael Hargreaves is a town planner with more than thirty years' experience for local authorities in Wales, London, and Cambridgeshire, and subsequently as a civil servant where he became Head of Regional Planning at the Government Office for the East of England. In that role he piloted the East of England Regional Spatial Strategy Gypsy & Traveller review, which set the standard for such reviews.

Since leaving the Government Office he has worked as planning and accommodation adviser to the Irish Traveller Movement in Britain, co-authoring the report, Planning for Gypsies and Travellers: The Impact of Localism, and established Michael Hargreaves Planning as a sole practitioner planning consultancy specalising in Gypsy and Traveller issues.