BW Scotland Group
The British Waterways Scotland Group, chaired by British Waterways board member, Jon Hargreaves, champions British Waterways corporate and commercial interests in Scotland , providing a valuable counselling, consultative and influencing function both internally and externally. It meets three to four times each year and the public and interested organisations have the opportunity to learn more about canals and express views on strategic issues.
British Waterways Scotland Group Members
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Dr Jon Hargreaves Chairman Dr Jon Hargreaves joins the Board on 1 April 2008 to represent Scottish interests after extensive experience in the water industry, most recently as Chief Executive of Scottish Water. He is also chair of the British Waterways Scotland Group. He has had 34 years experience in the water industry together with experience in international markets. Prior to joining Scottish Water, he was Chief Executive of East of Scotland Water, Managing Director of Northumbrian Water Ltd, Managing Director of ENTEC Europe Ltd and Managing Director of Northumbrian Lyonnaise International. He graduated BSc in Applied Biology and was awarded a Doctorate from Durham University. |
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Steve Dunlop Steve is Director Scotland at British Waterways. He was previously director of regeneration at Newcastle City Council. He started his career in leisure management before moving to a number of high profile senior positions in local government, latterly as director of community services at Falkirk Council. |
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Andrew Gordon Andrew currently operates as the Chief Executive of the Canmore Partnership Limited, which is a specialist PFI/PPP company. Through this, he has served on the Board of a number of SPV companies that are responsible for building relationships with various public sector bodies to deliver PFI and PPP projects. This has included the development of Inverness Air Terminal and a number of hospitals. Prior to his current role, he spent a number of years working in London as part of HSBC Investment Banking, where he delivered on deals across the Public and Private sector, which included the Department of Environment where he worked on the disposal and transfer of assets and the Ministry of Defence with the contractualisation of its Dockyards. |
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David Hastings A development & regeneration professional with 20 years cross-sectoral experience. Currently Executive Director at Strathleven Regeneration Company Limited a private/public partnership set up to deliver, through joint venture with property developers, the £70m redevelopment of the former J&B bottling plant at Dumbarton and, by the commercial and regeneration success of that project, establish a delivery vehicle for the wider area's regeneration. |
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Ron Hewitt Ron is currently the Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce. He has a strong commercial and customer service background and has worked across a number of interesting sectors. This includes working as Managing Director of Kwik Fit Insurance Services and as Director of Operations at RAC Motoring Services. More recently, over the last three years, he has been Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, where he has created broader links into a range of business, not for profit and Public Sector bodies not only within the Edinburgh area, but across Scotland and beyond. Regeneration and development of local economies is one of Ron's core interests. In terms of raising a profile of a body, he has worked hard to build the profile of the Chamber and over the last few years the membership of it has increased significantly. He holds a number of non-executive roles. |
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Ronnie Rusack Currently Chairman of Seagull Trust Cruises and prior to that the Owner/Operator of The Bridge Inn as well as being a volunteered advisor to BWS. Ronnie brings 'real-time' experience as a commercial operator who utilises the canal network on a regular basis. |
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Duncan Sutherland Duncan is a non-executive British Waterways board member and Managing Director of Inpartnership. Previously he was Director of City Development for Coventry City Council and achieved many city centre projects including Coventry Canal Basin . He has also worked at Inner City Enterprises plc and was Chief Executive of the EDI Group Ltd. He has been involved in national organisations such as, Historic Burghs Association of Scotland Advisory Council and was an Executive Committee Member of the Scottish Council for Development & Industry. |
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Guthrie Hutton Guthrie was formerly in production design and resource planning with BBC Scotland. He was a strong campaigner for the reopening and regeneration of the Lowland Canals and is currently Vice-President of the Forth & Clyde Canal Society. He now works as a writer of local history subjects and has had nine books on the Scottish canals published as well as numerous articles in magazines and newsletters. |
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Sandra Purves Sandra has twenty five years experience as a civil/structural engineer and, through her involvement in the Edinburgh Canal Society, has extensive experience of the voluntary sector of the Lowland Canals. |
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Chris Spray Chris is a wetland ecologist and environmental manager by training, and has recently taken up the post of Professor of Water Science & Policy at the UNESCO Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science at Dundee University. For the previous five years, he was SEPA's Director of Environmental Science, overseeing their programme for monitoring and reporting on the Scottish environment, as well as being responsible for flood warning and Scotland's hydrometric network. He has been a member of the Scottish and English Biodiversity Committees, and has acted as a trustee of several national Conservation organisations, including RSPB and Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, and currently serves on the Freshwater Biological Association. A past President of the Institute of Ecology & Environmental Management, he has also chaired Tweed Forum and been a director of the River Restoration Centre. Previous roles included work with Northumbrian Water Group, the National Rivers Authority and Anglian Water Authority - including responsibility for the navigable waterways of East Anglia - and ten years zoological research with Aberdeen University, much of it on swans. He was awarded the MBE in 2000 for services to environmental conservation in the water industry. |
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The British Waterways Chairman, Tony Hales, and British Waterways Chief Executive, Robin Evans, are not BWSG members but have a standing invitation to attend BWSG meetings.











