[2] After attending Ulverston Grammar School, he studied civil engineering at University of Liverpool, and undertook war service in the Admiralty.
At Newcastle, he took charge of a newly created department—one of the first planning departments in the country—and worked closely with the city council's political leader, T. Dan Smith.
In this approach, Burns was influenced by the American architect Victor Gruen, and the proposals for Newcastle were sometimes referred to as creating "the Brasília of the North".
Politicians became aerated with the visions of the future ..."In 1968, Burns was appointed as chief planner at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, becoming Deputy Secretary at the Department of the Environment (DoE) in 1971, with responsibility for integrating national land use and transport planning policy.
[1] He left the DoE in 1982, to become the deputy chairman of the Local Government Boundary Commission for England, and also served on national committees on the future of the planning system and on urban priority areas.