GAP membership

Alison Fure – Furesfen & London Bat Group

Alison is a full member of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM) and Chartered Environmentalist. She is a licensed trainer for the London Bat Group on behalf of Natural England. Alison established Furesfen in 1997 and presently is advising a wide range of clients on the nature conservation interest on sites and commenting on the impact of projects. She assists in the production of management plans, river corridor surveys, site assessments, preparation of mitigation strategies, and consultation with statutory authorities. She also works with community groups and runs workshops to encourage people to engage with wildlife, and undertakes research on bats and lighting and bat use of river corridors.

David Brown – London Parks Benchmarking Group

David has been working in and around parks for many years. While at the London Borough of Ealing he acted as a database administrator for a system designed to manage the borough’s parks and open spaces. In 2009 he set up a consultancy business and in 2013 made a significant investment in GPS surveying equipment in order to provide surveying and data collection services to parks managers. He currently employs three surveyors. David has been a member of the London Parks Benchmarking Group for many years and was until recently the honorary treasurer.

Elliot Newton – Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames

Elliot is the Biodiversity Officer for the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames, in this role he is leading the creation of the boroughs Biodiversity Action Plan and working at both a grassroot and strategic level with the aim to help Kingston become a leading borough of urban and peri – urban nature conservation. Elliot has a great interest in urban ecology and the power of community led conservation programmes, and has a Postgraduate Certificate in Ecology at the University of Edinburgh and then a MSc in Conservation Science at Imperial College London. Over the past 10 years, Elliot has led a number of habitat restoration programmes on nature reserves, and species reintroduction including large marsh grasshopper and water vole. He is also the co-founder of Citizen Zoo, a rewilding organisation which puts communities at the heart of conservation projects.

Jeremy Matthews – Environment Agency

Awaiting biography

Laurie Baker – London Geodiversity Partnership

Laurie has been involved with the London Geodiversity Partnership for over 12 years and is currently Chair. He has been integral in the LGP revision of the sites directory of London’s Foundations. He is a member of the Geologists’ Association and the Open University Geological Society. He has been involved with ecology and the environment in south east London for over 25 years.

Mark Spencer  – London Natural History Society

Mark is the vascular plant recorder for the London Natural History Society and the Middlesex vice-county recorder for the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland. He has been active in documenting the flora of the London area for over two decades and is leading a LNHS project to publish a new flora of the London area. Currently an independent consultant botanist, specialising in forensics, invasive species and plant identification training, Mark used to be senior curator of the British and Irish Herbarium at the Natural History Museum, London. He is the honorary curator of the Linnean Society of London’s plant collections, home to the herbarium of the ‘father of taxonomy’, Carl Linnaeus.

Naomi Pomfret – London Borough of Newham

Naomi is a spatial planner for the London Borough of Newham with a passion for the value of nature in urban environments and the importance of access to outdoor space for London’s children; for exploration, play and learning. She has over a decade of experience which includes being Planning Policy Manager at the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, during which time she created pioneering work on the control of hot foot takeaways around schools, making links between public health and planning. Currently, Naomi is leading the review of Newham’s green and water space policies in its emerging Local Plan. To support this work she is delivering a Green and Water Space Infrastructure Strategy. The work is jointly commissioned by Planning Policy and the Parks Team. Involvement has also been sought from Public Health and Highways to ensure the study has wide reaching benefits. Naomi’s work specialisms at Newham also include social infrastructure and neighbourhood planning.

Simon Saville – Butterfly Conservation

Simon is Chair of the volunteer-led Branch of Butterfly Conservation that covers South-West London. He is also a Trustee for Butterfly Conservation at a national level. He is a founder member of Southwark Nature Action Volunteers and regularly monitors butterfly populations in the green spaces of the area. As a Ranger for London National Park City, he actively encourages people to explore, enjoy and improve the green spaces near where they live. He works with councils and Friends Groups to improve parks for wildlife, using butterflies and moths as indicators of progress. In future, this will focus around Butterfly Conservation’s “Wild Spaces” campaign to encourage people to create places where wildlife can feed, breed and shelter.

Valerie Beirne – Where Pathways Meet

Valerie is a landscape architect and founder of Where Pathways Meet placemaking consultancy. Her work focuses on the meeting point of cities, nature and communities across the fields of strategic placemaking, green infrastructure, landscape strategy, urbanism, active travel, and economic development. Valerie previously managed the Bankside Urban Forest and Low Line programmes at Better Bankside BID, and worked for the Thames Landscape Strategy and Groundwork UK.