Ian Johnson was born in 1945 in Lincoln, and educated at Lincoln School, Nottingham College of Art and Design where he obtained a Diploma with Distinction in Town and Country Planning and Edinburgh Univerisity where he obtained an MSc in Social Science for research in Urban Conservation. He became a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute in 1972. He retired in June 2010 after working for many years in local government in the West of Scotland as a strategic planner and heritage manager.
As principal planner for strategy he was part of the successful team that delivered strategic plans for Strathclyde Regional Council for many years. In the 1980s to follow up a special interest he prepared the first regional scale heritage strategy in Scotland which in turn led to a post as Principal Planner for Heritage to deliver on the implementation aspects of the plan through project development. These projects ranged throughout Strathclyde from archaeological interpretation in Argyll through to industrial museums in the Central Belt. During that period he lectured widely not only on strategic planning and heritage policy management for the University of Strathclyde, but also as an extra-mural lecturer on industrial archaeology at the University of Glasgow. Also at that time he was a Committee Member of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, a Board Member of the Dalrymple Lectures Board of Trustees and became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
Moving to Ayrshire in 1996 to take up the manager’s post of the newly created Ayrshire Joint Structure Plan and Transportation Committee he has successfully delivered two regional strategic plans for Ayrshire for approval by government, and has initiated innovative work on forestry and woodland management for Forestry Commission Scotland. As a result he sits on the South Scotland Regional Forestry Forum and acts as advisor on the Woodlands Around Towns forestry evaluation panel. With an interest in historic gardens and designed landscapes he sits on the on the Garden History Society, Scottish Gardens Advisory Group.
With expertise in the relationship of heritage to wider social and community development, in 2003 he was appointed as a member of the Historic Environment Advisory Council for Scotland, a Government-appointed advisory non-departmental public body (NDPB), and was vice chair from 2006 to 2009. In that role he authored reports on local government and the historic environment and the economic impact of the historic environment.
He is married to Dr Carol Swanson, Manager of the West of Scotland Archaeology Service.