Luke Bennett PhD, MRes, LLB Hons, PGCLTHE, SFHEA
Emeritus Fellow
Summary
Luke joined Sheffield Hallam University after practising as an environmental lawyer in the commercial sector for 17 years. He was course leader for the BSc Real Estate for over a decade and taught law and environmental policy to surveyors, construction managers and environmental managers. Luke is now an Emeritus Fellow and continues to supervise PhD students, write academic publications and edit the Journal of Property, Planning & Environmental Law alongside other public service roles.
About
Luke joined Sheffield Hallam University in 2007 after practising as an environmental lawyer in the commercial sector for 17 years. He was course leader for the BSc Real Estate for over a decade and taught law and environmental policy to surveyors, construction managers and environmental managers throughout his time in the University’s Department of the Natural & Built Environment. Alongside this Luke developed an international research profile in both legal geography and modern ruin studies, with his research focussing on how abandoned industrial and military premises are governed by their owners and accessed by recreational trespassers. Luke’s research and its rising profile resulted in award of a PhD in 2015, promotion to Reader/Associate Professor in 2016 and publication of his book In the Ruins of the Cold War Bunker: Affect, Materiality & Meaning Making (Rowman & Littlefield) in 2017. In April 2024, after four years as an acting Deputy Head of Subject (Built Environment), and due to restructuring, Luke took the opportunity to leave his staff role, and he is now an Emeritus Fellow. In that honorary capacity Luke continues to supervise PhD students at the University, write academic publications and edit the Journal of Property, Planning & Environmental Law alongside other public service roles.
Teaching
In addition to leading the BSc (Hons) Real Estate course, Luke also taught built environment law to surveying and related courses, including the following:
· Law and Economics for the Built Environment (a first year undergraduate introductory module)
· Development Practice (a final year undergraduate module)
· Property Law & Professional Context (a module on the RICS accredited MSc conversion programme)
· Construction Law & Professional Context (a module on the RICS accredited MSc conversion programme)
· Environmental Perspectives & Policy Development (a module on the MSc Environmental Management course)
Luke’s achievements in leading teaching and learning were acknowledged by conferment of Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy in 2024.
Research
- Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research
Luke has been instrumental in leading the development of thriving academic communities for both legal geography and modern ruin studies, organising international conferences, advising key stakeholders, curating collaborative research, editing publications, giving guest lectures and media interviews. Key areas of engagement and knowledge transfer have included:
- Publishing frequently cited and agenda-setting academic papers in both fields
- Playing an active role in developing UK legal geography, and building networks with legal geography communities in Asia, Australia, North American, and Europe.
- Advising public bodies on their liabilities for recreational access accidents
- Researching the motives and methods of metal theft in the built environment, particularly in relation to heritage buildings
- Interpreting cultures of recreational trespass as they relate to military ruins
- Participating in international networks of scholars studying the history and re-use of military bunkers
Since 2012 Luke has also been the coordinator of the cross-university ‘Space & Place Group’, an interdisciplinary forum which has hosted highly regarded online workshops on subjects such as campus design, climate change and contemporary exploration. Recordings of many of its sessions can be viewed via the link above.
Publications
Journal articles
Kanellopoulou, E.J., Lalor, K., & Bennett, L. (2024). A legal walk of Sheffield: foregrounding the everyday presence of law in the city. Journal of Place Management and Development, 17 (2), 159-170. http://doi.org/10.1108/jpmd-03-2024-0023
Bennett, L. (2020). Reconsidering law at the edge: how and why do place‐managers balance thrill and compliance at outdoor attraction sites? Area. http://doi.org/10.1111/AREA.12667
Bennett, L. (2019). Introduction: The Bunker’s After-Life: Cultural Production in the Ruins of the Cold War. Journal of War & Culture Studies, 1-10. http://doi.org/10.1080/17526272.2019.1698845
Bennett, L. (2019). Towards a Legal Psychogeography: pragmatism, affective-materialism and the spatio-legal. Revue Géographique de l'Est, 58 (1-2).
Bennett, L. (2019). The haunted paddock: exploring the roots of an ambiguous urban green space. People, Place and Policy, 12 (3), 225-240. http://doi.org/10.3351/ppp.2019.6648358933
Bennett, L. (2019). Grubbing out the Führerbunker: Ruination, demolition and Berlin’s difficult subterranean heritage. Geographia Polonica, 92 (1). https://www.geographiapolonica.pl/article/item/11707.html
Bennett, L. (2018). Curated decay: heritage beyond saving - Book review. Social & Cultural Geography, 20 (4), 596-597. http://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2019.1551716
Bennett, L. (2018). Cold War Ruralism: civil defence planning, country ways and the founding of the UK’s Royal Observer Corps' fallout monitoring posts network. Journal of Planning History, 17 (3), 205-225. http://doi.org/10.1177/1538513217707083
Bennett, L., & Crawley Jackson, A. (2016). Making common ground with strangers at Furnace Park. Social and cultural geography, 18 (1), 92-108. http://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2016.1231835
Bennett, L. (2016). How does law make place? Localisation, translocalisation and thing-law at the world's first factory. Geoforum, 74, 182-191. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.06.008
Bennett, L., & Layard, A. (2015). There are eight million stories in the Naked City - guest editorial. International Journal of Law in the Built Environment, 7 (1). http://doi.org/10.1108/IJLBE-10-2014-0030
Bennett, L., & Layard, A. (2015). Legal geography: becoming spatial detectives. Geography compass, 9 (7), 406-422. http://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12209
Bennett, L. (2013). Concrete multivalence – practising representation in bunkerology. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 31 (3), 502-521. http://doi.org/10.1068/d3612
Bennett, L. (2012). Who goes there? Accounting for gender in the urge to explore abandoned military bunkers. Gender, Place and Culture, 20 (5), 630-646. http://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2012.701197
Bennett, L. (2011). Judges, child trespassers and occupiers' liability. International Journal of Law in the Built Environment, 3 (2), 126-145. http://doi.org/10.1108/17561451111148248
Bennett, L. (2011). 'Exploring the bunker' - a response by Luke Bennett to 'Shallow Excavation'. Environment and planning. D , Society and space. http://www.societyandspace.com/
Bennett, L. (2011). Bunkerology - a case study in the theory and practice of urban exploration. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 29 (3), 421-434. http://doi.org/10.1068/d13410
Bennett, L. (2011). The Bunker: metaphor, materiality & management. Culture and Organization, 17 (2), 155-173. http://doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2011.544894
Bennett, L., & Gibbeson, C. (2010). Perceptions of occupiers' liability risk by estate managers: a case study of memorial safety in English cemeteries. International Journal of Law in the Built Environment, 2 (1), 76. http://doi.org/10.1108/17561451011036531
Bennett, L. (2010). Trees and public liability - who really decides what is reasonably safe. Arboricultural journal, 33, 141-164. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03071375.2010.9747606
Bennett, L. (2009). Why, what, and how? case study on law, risk, and decision making as necessary themes in built environment teaching. Journal of legal affairs dispute resolution engineering and construction, 1 (2), 105-113. http://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)1943-4162(2009)1:2(105)
Bennett, L. (2008). Assets under attack: metal theft, the built environment and the dark side of the global recycling market. Environmental law and management, 20, 176-183. http://www.lawtext.com/lawtextweb/default.jsp?PageID=2
Conference papers
Bennett, L. (2021). Ruin, real estate or heritage? Tracing the after lives of four UK continuity of government nuclear bunkers built in the late 1980s. In Camerin, F., & Gastaldi, F. (Eds.) Rigenerare le aree militari dismesse Prospettive, dibattiti e riconversioni in Italia, Spagna e in contesti internazionali, Venice, Italy (online), 23 September 2021 - 24 September 2021 (pp. 210-220). Maggioli Editore: http://doi.org/10.30448/UNI.916.50825
Bennett, L., & Dickinson, J. (2015). Forcing the empties back to work? : ruinphobia and the bluntness of law and policy. In Transience and Permanence in Urban Development International Research Workshop, University of Sheffield, Town & Regional Planning Dept, 14 January 2015 - 15 January 2015. http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/trp/research/bennettdickinson
Bennett, L. (2011). A pub, a field and some signs – a case study on the pragmatics of proprietorship and legal cognition. In COBRA 2011 - Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors International Research Conference, Manchester, UK, 12 September 2011 - 13 September 2011. http://www.cobra2011.com/
Bennett, L. (2010). Judges, child trespassers and occupiers’ liability in the built environment. In COBRA 2010, Paris, France, 2 September 2010 - 3 September 2010. http://www.cobra2010.com/
Bennett, L. (2011). Bunkerology - a case study in the meaning making practices of on-line urban exploration forums. In Ethicomp 2011 - the social impact of social computing, Sheffield, 14 September 2011 - 16 September 2011. http://www.ccsr.cse.dmu.ac.uk/conferences/ethicomp/ethicomp2011/
Book chapters
Bennett, L. (2023). U for underground. In Picard, M., Brenchat-Aguilar, A., Carroll, T., Gilbert, J., & Miller, N. (Eds.) Wastiary - A Bestiary of Waste. (pp. 81-83). London: UCL Press: http://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800085183
Bennett, L. (2023). U for underground. In Picard, M., Brenchat-Aguilar, A., Carroll, T., Gilbert, J., & Miller, N. (Eds.) Wastiary - A Bestiary of Waste. (pp. 81-83). London: UCL Press: http://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800085183
Bennett, L. (2021). How to make 1500 holes in the ground: accounting for law alongside other place-shaping factors in the making of an exceptional Cold War network. In Bartel, R., & Carter, J. (Eds.) Handbook on space, place and law. (pp. 2-13). Edward Elgar Publishing: http://doi.org/10.4337/9781788977203.00010
Bennett, L. (2017). Approaching the bunker: Exploring the Cold War through its ruins. In Bennett, L. (Ed.) In the ruins of the Cold War bunker: Affect, materiality and meaning-making. (pp. 3-22). London: Rowan & Littlefield International: https://www.rowmaninternational.com/book/in_the_ruins_of_the_cold_war_bunker/3-156-afdcfe7a-b585-4303-82a2-23ee9b64e05d
Bennett, L. (2017). Entering the bunker with Paul Virilio: The Atlantic wall, pure war and trauma. In Bennett, L. (Ed.) In the ruins of the Cold War bunker: Affect, materiality and meaning-making. (pp. 23-38). London: Rowan & Littlefield International: https://www.rowmaninternational.com/book/in_the_ruins_of_the_cold_war_bunker/3-156-afdcfe7a-b585-4303-82a2-23ee9b64e05d
Bennett, L. (2017). Presencing the bunker: Past, present and future. In Bennett, L. (Ed.) In the ruins of the Cold War bunker: Affect, materiality and meaning-making. (pp. 233-250). London: Rowan & Littlefield International: https://www.rowmaninternational.com/book/in_the_ruins_of_the_cold_war_bunker/3-156-afdcfe7a-b585-4303-82a2-23ee9b64e05d
Bennett, L. (2017). Forcing the empties back to work? Ruinphobia and the bluntness of law and policy. In Henneberry, J. (Ed.) Transience and permanence in urban development. (pp. 17-30). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley: http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1119055652,subjectCd-AR82.html
Bennett, L. (2016). Thinking like a brick : posthumanism and building materials. In Taylor, C., & Hughes, C. (Eds.) Posthuman Research Practices in Education. (pp. 58-74). Palgrave Macmillian: http://doi.org/10.1057/9781137453082_5
Bennett, L. (2015). Incongruous steps toward a legal psychogeography. In Richardson, T. (Ed.) Walking inside out : contemporary British psychogeography. (pp. 59-72). London: Rowman & Littlefield International: http://www.rowmaninternational.com/books/walking-inside-out
Books
Bennett, L. (Ed.). (2017). In the ruins of the Cold War bunker: Affect, materiality and meaning-making. London: Rowan & Littlefield International. https://www.rowmaninternational.com/book/in_the_ruins_of_the_cold_war_bunker/3-156-afdcfe7a-b585-4303-82a2-23ee9b64e05d
Bennett, L., & Hock, K. (2013). Scree. Sheffield: Tract Publishing. https://lukebennett13.wordpress.com/publications/publications/
Theses / Dissertations
Bennett, L.E. (2015). Interpretive Communities at work and play in the built environment. (Doctoral thesis).
Bennett, L. (2010). Bunkerology - a case study in the meanings, motives and methods of urban exploration. (Doctoral thesis).
Other publications
Bennett, L. (2012). Why do we only notice metal when it hurts? – Some sideways thoughts on metal theft. MetalTheft.Net: http://metaltheft.net/scrapped.html
Bennett, L. (2008). Metal theft - anatomy of a resource crime. Unpublished
Bennett, L., & Crowe, L. (2008). Landowners' liability? is perception of the risk of liability for visitors accidents a barrier to countryside access? Sheffield: Countryside recreation network
Other activities
In 2023 Luke was appointed as an academic representative to the University-wide Information & Consultation Committee.
In January 2022 Luke was appointed Editor in Chief of the Journal of Property, Planning & Environmental Law.
Postgraduate supervision
Luke has supervised one doctoral student to successful completion (Dr Charlene Cross, ‘Exploring Urban Change through Owners’ Lived Experiences of Their ‘Underutilised’ Properties’, July 2024) and remains an active supervisor to two ongoing doctoral candidates.