Three new appointments to the Broads Authority were announced this week by the Minister for Biodiversity, Landscape and Rural Affairs, Barry Gardiner.
Stephen Johnson, John Sharpe and Tony Stapleton have been appointed for a four-year term of office, starting from 1 April 2007, and will attend their first meeting as members of the Broads Authority on 11 May.
Stephen Johnson has been Director of Operations at the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) since 1997, in charge of the delivery of HLF grants and programmes for the whole of the UK. The HLF has committed over £3.6 billion to more than 22,500 projects, including some awards to the Broads Authority, most recently for the bursaries scheme for traditional crafts.
Stephen has spent the whole of his professional career in different roles in heritage management, from 1973 to 1997 at the Department of the Environment and English Heritage. In 1991 he was appointed as Regional Director of the multi-disciplinary teams providing English Heritageís casework services in the North of England. At this time he introduced Conservation Area Partnership programmes and worked on the production of more comprehensive management plans for UKís World Heritage Sites, the pioneering example of which was Hadrianís Wall.
His interests include wildlife, landscapes and buildings. He is an occasional dinghy sailor and hopes to do more sailing in the future.
John Sharpe is Conservation Manager in Eastern England for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. His role is to oversee the societyís conservation work in the region to ensure that important areas for wildlife are well protected and that opportunities for creation of new wildlife habitats are developed. He has worked for the RSPB since 1991 and previously worked for the Northumberland Wildlife Trust and Sefton Borough Council. He has been a member of the Broads Forum since it was established in 2002.
He is the author of 'Coast in Crisis' reports highlighting the impacts of climate change and sea-level rise on freshwater and intertidal wildlife habitats in Eastern England. He has also presented papers on coastal issues at seminars and conferences in both the UK and the USA and has travelled to Australia and California to examine how integrated coastal management there deals with both nature conservation and flood management. He has been a member of Local and Regional Flood Defence Committees since 1995.
John is a keen walker, cyclist and, more recently, canoeist, and also enjoys listening to and writing about jazz.
Tony Stapleton has a background in both the academic and business environments and has worked in the UK, the USA, Canada, Japan, Peru and Iran. Most recently he has worked as Senior Lecturer in International Marketing for the Open University Business School, teaching strategic management at MBA level.
In 2002 he was appointed as the first chair of the Broads Forum, and has promoted a united commitment to the Broads, encouraging members to find consensus. 'Everyone is there because they have a strong commitment to the Broads which has broadened the range of expertise that the Authority can tap into to help it make decisions,' he says.
Previously Tony has held senior management positions in the public sector (the World Bank in Washington), industry (Astra Zeneca) and in voluntary service (Norfolk Area Courts Board). He has also carried out environmental research and run his own farm.
He is a keen sailor, sailing a 1927 Broads cruiser, and also has three kayaks. Other interests include bird-watching, fishing, walking and the theatre.
Reproduced by kind permission of
Broads Authority.
