CONFERENCES - WOODFUEL CONFERENCE - SPEAKER PROFILES

Lord Anthony Hamilton (RFS President)

Anthony Bosanquet (Past President CLA and FC Commissioner Wales)
EMPLOYMENT:
Music Teacher (1969 - 1993) at:- Bancroft's School, Woodford Green;
Eton College; King Henry Vlll Comprehensive School, Abergavenny;
Monmouth School (part-time).

Owner and manager (since 1975) of the 1200-acre Dingestow Court Estate – c.1,040 acres farmland (dairy, beef, sheep and arable), let on Traditional and FBT tenancies; c.160 acres in-hand woodland; Houses and cottages let on Assured Shorthold Tenancies; Two self-catering holiday apartments; Offices of the Gwent Wildlife Trust.

LAND-RELATED POSITIONS:
CLA President (1999- 2001).
Forestry Commissioner (2001-2007)
Trustee of FWAG (Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group)(2002-2006)
Chairman of the Ernest Cook Trust (2005-present)

OTHER POSITIONS:
Magistrate (1982 – 2000 [resigned])
Deputy Lieutenant for Gwent (since 1991)
High Sheriff of Gwent (1994)
Chairman of Merlin Music Society (1990-1998)
President of Monmouth Operatic Society (1994-2000)
Chairman of Historic Houses Association in Wales (1991-1994)

EDUCATION & QUALIFICATIONS
Eton College
Keble College, Oxford
London University Institute of Education
Associate of the Royal College of Music (Piano)
Associate of the Royal College of Organists

Rod Leslie (FC England)

PowerPoint presentation (12674 KB)

Keith Richards (TV Energy)
Keith has more than 25 years' experience of renewable energy and energy efficiency project management and consultancy through ETSU (the Energy Technology Support Unit, Harwell). He has been central to the take-up of bioenergy projects in the UK, developing strategies for Government and then implementing them. He has championed the development of regional and sub-regional targets. Keith established TVE in 2001, and since then has been focusing on working with community groups in close collaboration with Local Authorities and Regional Government to introduce hybrid renewables solutions. Keith remains an expert evaluator for the European Commission and Task Manager for the International Energy Agency (IEA), a role extending for more than 20 years. He is also a member of many regional committees on sustainability, rural development, climate change and planning. Keith was awarded an OBE for services to sustainable development in the Queens birthday honours list in 2005. Qualifications: BSc (Hons), PhD, CChem, MRSC

PowerPoint presentation (18150 KB)

Ewan Bent (Midlands Wood Fuel Ltd)

PowerPoint presentation (1456 KB)

Andy Hall (Forest Research)
Head of Technical Development Group, Forest Research and Co Director of FR’s woodfuel Research Centre and the Biomass Energy Centre

Andy joined Forest Research for a second period in 2001, and specialises in method and work-study related issues. The Technical Development Group (TDG) carries out work on a wide range of forest management and harvesting operations on behalf of the Forestry Commission and Forest Enterprise, as well as for a number of clients outside the Forestry Commission.

The aim of TDG is to:

Develop and evaluate safe and efficient equipment and methods of work Maintain and expand output information Provide a technical trouble shooting service

Research Areas:
Machinery and Methods
Safety and Ergonomics

Expertise:
Wood Fuel production and use
Role: Leader in project area
All aspects of fuel wood production, and undertaking outreach seminars/workshops throughout UK

Small-scale harvesting systems
Role Project leader
Method and system development issues and undertaking outreach seminars/workshops throughout UK

Direct seeding, Broadleaf and Conifer
Role: Leader in project area
Method and system development issues

Main recent publications:
Technical note – Small-scale Systems for the Harvesting of Woodfuel Products
Woodfuel information Pack

Conversion – Boilers for Beginners (64 KB)

PowerPoint presentation (3928 KB)

Mike Pitcher (Wood Energy Business Scheme)
Mike Pitcher graduated from Reading University in 1990 with a Degree in Land Management. After a short period of employment as a surveyor, Mike returned to University in 1994 where he took an MSc in Environmental Forestry at Bangor University. Mike then worked extensively overseas between 1995 and 2004, working on a variety of forestry-related development projects, mainly in Africa. In 2004 Mike returned to Wales to take up position as Project Manager of the Wood Energy Business Scheme for the Forestry Commission. Mike is married with three small children and hopes to remain in West Wales for the foreseeable future.

Socio-economics of woodfuel: Does it all stack up? (17 KB)

PowerPoint presentation (245 KB)

Ian Tubby (Biomass Energy Centre)

PowerPoint presentation (3748 KB)

Sarah Young (Landscape Use Consultants)
Sarah Young BA MSc is an Associate at Land Use Consultants (LUC), an environmental planning and design consultancy. Sarah joined LUC from Oxford Brookes University where she was a researcher in the Planning Policy Research Group. Her principal area of expertise is strategic environmental planning research and policy development - particularly in relation to environmental impact assessment and renewable energy. Sarah has advised government agencies, local authorities and developers on renewable energy and planning issues for a number of years. She has been responsible for the preparation of numerous sustainable energy strategies/ planning studies across the country including Cornwall, East Midlands, Bedfordshire, Fife, and North Yorkshire. Her wider work in the field of sustainable energy has involved managing the DTI's Renewable Energy Planning Monitoring Review Programme and undertaking various national planning research studies for the DTI's New and Renewable Energy Programme. More recently she has been involved in the co-ordination of numerous environmental impact assessments for renewable energy developments in both England and Scotland. She has also recently completed a research study on behalf of Wildlife and Countryside Link looking at the environmental impacts of bioenergy.

PowerPoint presentation (2271 KB)

Dr Eunice Simmons, National Forestry School

Will Richardson (Yorwoods)
As well as a director of Rural Development Initiatives, a not for profit project management company, Will currently manages the Yorwoods woodland initiative in Yorkshire and the Humber. Yorwoods is a publicly and privately funded initiative that works with the forest industry through a series of support services. Will is a qualified forester and has been in the industry since 1991. His current work load is very much focused on developing the woodfuel sector in the Yorkshire region and he is currently involved in the following woodfuel related projects:

• Yorkshire Woodfuels Ltd. Will is the director of this co-operative of woodland owners and forest based businesses set up and managed by Yorwoods to supply wood fuel products to end users.
• Biomass Action Group. Will is a member of the group, along side landowners and public sector bodies, set up to strengthen the biomass sector in the Yorkshire region.
• Woodfuel development services in the protected landscapes of North Yorkshire.

In addition to this, he is a registered instructor with Lantra Awards for the delivery of the Ignite training course.

PowerPoint presentation (3908 KB)

Hugh Williams (National Forest Company)
Hugh is currently Senior Officer, Incentives and Land Management at the National Forest Company (NFC). His work includes: the National Forest Tender Scheme; leading the Forest's woodland based sustainable economy; helping to steer the partnership funded Woodland Economy Business Support (WEBS) project; coordination of the National Forest Wood Fair; external corporate sponsorship and; a wide programme of incentives and annual management agreements with landowners, businesses, charitable and public bodies.

Hugh was made a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Foresters in 2007 and is Vice Chairman of the ICF Examinations Panel. He is also a Member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. He is a member of the Leadership Group, England Forest Industries Partnership, a Forestry Commission Regional Advisory Group Member for the East Midlands and a Committee Member of the Farm Woodland Forum.

Hugh established his own consultancy, external to the NFC, in 2003. He was a participant on a Leonardo de Vinci Exchange programme to Denmark in 2002 that looked at wood heat policy and practice. He has also worked for the World Bank on a wood-fuel project in Chad and has been a teacher in Japan.

Academic qualifications include a Diploma in Management, Derby Business School (2001); Ph.D., The Use of Remotely Sensed Satellite Data to Quantify and Model Forest Resources, Reading University (1992-1996); M.Sc. Environmental Forestry, University College of North Wales, Bangor, (1991) and; B.A. Hons. Geography, Exeter University (1988).

PowerPoint presentation (1127 KB)

Andy Tolfts (Croydon Tree Station)

PowerPoint presentation (1854 KB)

Richard Harvey (Rural Energy Trust)
Richard is the founder and managing director of Rural Energy Trust, a biomass heating consultancy and biomass fuel organization. He is Managing Director of Rural Energy Ltd, a biomass heating system installation company, which now employs 11 staff and has installed over 100 heating systems since 2003. He is also founder and a director of East Midlands Wood Fuels, a farmer wood fuel producer group.

Richard is son of a Lincolnshire farmer and after reading General Agriculture at Nottingham University, he spent periods of employment with ICI Agriculture in the East Midlands and with the Government of Zambia as a research and development officer. He now farms 130 hectares of combinable crops and conservation habitat, in East Leicestershire. Richard is Managing Director of Manor Farm Feeds (Owston) Ltd, a farm animal feed manufacturer and a director of the Rural Training Centre, which provides farm and other business training as well as a range of local community training and leisure activities. All of the various premises for these businesses are heated by wood fuel heating systems.

Richard is a member of the Forestry Commission Regional Advisory Group for the East Midlands and the NFU Regional Crops Board, with responsibilities for biomass. He received an MBE for services to agriculture in the East Midlands, in 2005

PowerPoint presentation (2042 KB)

Robin Ridley (South Yorks Forestry Partnership) Robin Ridley has been co-ordinating the South Yorkshire Wood Fuel project since its inception in 2002. First under Objective 1 - Forest Resource Grant as the Timber Industries Officer, since 2005 as Wood Energy Co-ordinator funded by Yorkshire Forward, the RDA. His background has been in woodland management and has included firewood and charcoal production on semi-industrial and regional scales. He is a founding member of "The Working Woodlands Trust” which seeks amongst other things to encourage traditional woodland crafts PowerPoint presentation (3072 KB)

Tony Holmes (Renewable Energy Growers)
Tony Holmes was educated at Beverley Grammar School, followed by formal agricultural training at Seale Hayne College in Devon where he attained a National Diploma in Agriculture and Farm Management.

After leaving College, Tony worked in the farm machinery industry and became John Deere Territory Manager for Northern Ireland and Eire.

Tony returned to his native Yorkshire and closer links with practical farming. Operating through his own advisory company, the majority of his work has involved the setting up and running of farmer groups in the frozen vegetable and pea industry. Experience he now brings to the renewable energy crop sector.

PowerPoint presentation (1611 KB)

Gabriel Hemery (Forestry Horizons)
Gabriel Hemery is Director of an independent forestry think-tank, Forestry Horizons. A forest scientist, environmental programme manager and forestry policy-thinker. Gabriel has practical hands-on experience in land management, extensive knowledge of the forest sector and is a specialist in hardwood forestry research. He has conducted a range of consultancies for Government, NGOs and the private forestry sector and worked widely in collaborative international research programmes. The author of 35 papers and articles, he as acted as editor for an international forestry journal, and is a member of the international editorial board of the CABI Forest Science Database. Gabriel has held several senior positions in the UK environmental sector including Head of Land Science and Director of Land Operations for the Northmoor Trust in Oxfordshire and Director of Development for the Botanical Society of the British Isles. He has been responsible for creating a new 30 hectare woodland in Oxfordshire, England, personally planting over 25,000 trees, establishing and co-ordinating more than 25 field trials across the UK and Ireland, developing Britain’s first research centre dedicated to hardwood trees. Gabriel was secretary of an international forestry science group, BIHIP, and collaborated widely with scientists from Europe and North America in tree research and agroforestry programmes. He is a trustee for Woodland Heritage and a committee member of the Forestry Commission’s Regional Assembly for the South East. Gabriel is a Chartered Forester (and professional examiner for the ICF), a member of the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management and a Chartered Environmentalist.

PowerPoint presentation (836 KB)