Address
5 Raleigh Road, Ottery St Mary, EX11 1TG
Phone Number
07834 343667
Email
Register of Interests
Biography
I moved to Ottery St Mary in 2018 after working in Aviation for the previous 25 years all over the world. When I moved to Devon I had been living in Brighton and commuting weekly to Barcelona, so Devon was a welcome change of pace.
I was asked to chair the Ottery Business Forum and in 2019 was asked to put myself forward to be a Town Councillor, in the town’s first contested election in over 20 years. I was fortunate enough to be elected and was also elected as Chair of the Finance Committee (now Finance and Strategy Committee).
In our first month I put together Greener Ottery a volunteer group to write a Climate Emergency Plan for the Council. We were the first council in Devon to declare a climate emergency and we spent many months advising and supporting town and parish councils across Devon in taking action on climate change.
In the 2019 General Election I worked as Election Agent for Claire Wright, who ran a phenomenal campaign and received over 25,000 votes, the most for any independent candidate in the UK, but not quite enough to get elected.
When COVID arrived in 2020 I organised a meeting at the Council office of local community groups and health officials. This led directly to the formation of Ottery Community Volunteers with myself, Cllr Lucas and Cllr Johns as directors. We organised a team of over 100 people who did whatever was possible to help the community including shopping, gardening, welfare checks and more..
As the first lockdown ended we looked at what projects we could do next and saw food poverty as something that worked well with the Greener Ottery beliefs of preventing food waste. I started the Ottery Larder which has now been open for nearly 6 years. We currently see nearly 500 people each week and we hand out for free food, childrens’ clothes, toys, books, nappies, sanitary items and more. We organise community litter picks and have a strong voice in East Devon. In less than three years we have handed out 45,000 items of clothing, including more than 25 different schools’ uniforms.
With the Council I have taken a leading role in several large projects. The Section 106 money is finally going to spent in 2026, investing over £200,000 in the local community. The Playzone will open at Strawberry Lane giving us a state of the art football and netball pitch. As Chair of Finance I have overseen more than 50 community grants and around 30 shop front grants, which have put a significant amount of money back into our community. We have set up a very successful youth club, and ensured that mental health services for children continue to operate from our Station Hub. We have given the museum a home for the next 20 years and supported Ottery Library.
My “real job” is Chief Officer of Citizens Advice East Devon. We work all across East Devon to advise people on a whole range of issues – benefits, debt, families, legal issues, employment rights, consumer disputes and so much more.
I am also Chair of the Trustees for 1st Ottery St Mary Scouts.
For the Town Council I sit on the Ottery Health and Wellbeing Forum, Exeter Airports’ Consultative Committee and as CO of Citizens Advice and for the Ottery Larder I sit on a number of NHS, VCSE and local assemblies, fora and committees.
My inspiration remains my family. My wife Steph is from Exeter and our children Reggie, 7, and Eric, 5, are both at Ottery St Mary Primary School after graduating from OtterTots.
I was asked to chair the Ottery Business Forum and in 2019 was asked to put myself forward to be a Town Councillor, in the town’s first contested election in over 20 years. I was fortunate enough to be elected and was also elected as Chair of the Finance Committee (now Finance and Strategy Committee).
In our first month I put together Greener Ottery a volunteer group to write a Climate Emergency Plan for the Council. We were the first council in Devon to declare a climate emergency and we spent many months advising and supporting town and parish councils across Devon in taking action on climate change.
In the 2019 General Election I worked as Election Agent for Claire Wright, who ran a phenomenal campaign and received over 25,000 votes, the most for any independent candidate in the UK, but not quite enough to get elected.
When COVID arrived in 2020 I organised a meeting at the Council office of local community groups and health officials. This led directly to the formation of Ottery Community Volunteers with myself, Cllr Lucas and Cllr Johns as directors. We organised a team of over 100 people who did whatever was possible to help the community including shopping, gardening, welfare checks and more..
As the first lockdown ended we looked at what projects we could do next and saw food poverty as something that worked well with the Greener Ottery beliefs of preventing food waste. I started the Ottery Larder which has now been open for nearly 6 years. We currently see nearly 500 people each week and we hand out for free food, childrens’ clothes, toys, books, nappies, sanitary items and more. We organise community litter picks and have a strong voice in East Devon. In less than three years we have handed out 45,000 items of clothing, including more than 25 different schools’ uniforms.
With the Council I have taken a leading role in several large projects. The Section 106 money is finally going to spent in 2026, investing over £200,000 in the local community. The Playzone will open at Strawberry Lane giving us a state of the art football and netball pitch. As Chair of Finance I have overseen more than 50 community grants and around 30 shop front grants, which have put a significant amount of money back into our community. We have set up a very successful youth club, and ensured that mental health services for children continue to operate from our Station Hub. We have given the museum a home for the next 20 years and supported Ottery Library.
My “real job” is Chief Officer of Citizens Advice East Devon. We work all across East Devon to advise people on a whole range of issues – benefits, debt, families, legal issues, employment rights, consumer disputes and so much more.
I am also Chair of the Trustees for 1st Ottery St Mary Scouts.
For the Town Council I sit on the Ottery Health and Wellbeing Forum, Exeter Airports’ Consultative Committee and as CO of Citizens Advice and for the Ottery Larder I sit on a number of NHS, VCSE and local assemblies, fora and committees.
My inspiration remains my family. My wife Steph is from Exeter and our children Reggie, 7, and Eric, 5, are both at Ottery St Mary Primary School after graduating from OtterTots.