Julian Barlow
Chairman

Julian Barlow
Chairman

Lucy Normington
Non-Executive Director

Sylvia Wyatt
Non-Executive Director

Jonathan Bateman
Community Fund Committee Lead

David Lewin
Finance Lead

Lesley Bennett
Director

Jessica Thimbleby
Carbon Reduction Champion for wwce and wwt

Rob Gillies
Land Management Lead

Julian Barlow

Chairman

Julian is a local businessman who joined the board of the WWCE in 2019 becoming Chair in 2021. He has a special interest in the environment and issues associated with climate change and biodiversity, which is why he not only sits on our board but is also a council member of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust. He is a member of Compton Bassett Parish Council. and is a keen amateur beekeeper.

Julian has owned a public relations business for over 25 years, having previously worked as a journalist in the USA and the UK, writing for regional and national newspapers, and broadcast media. Since then, he has worked with legends like Olympian Sir Steve Redgrave CBE, as well as clients like United Biscuits Group, Tesco, Johnson & Johnson, and construction consultancy Gleeds. He’s also an advisor to senior members of the House of Lords, supporting their social media activity.

Lucy Normington

NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Lucy has lived in Purton for almost 20 years. She has been active on the committees of various local community groups such as Mums & Toddlers, the Under 5 Community Playgroup and Purton and Lydiard Scout Group, acting as Club Treasurer and events coordinator for these groups. In her professional life she has worked in the pharmaceutical industry, as the school business manager of St Mary’s Primary School in Purton, and is currently a project impact evaluator for Innovate UK, a government funding body that is based in Swindon.

Lucy is passionate about protecting Wiltshire’s diverse wildlife and communities and is decided to get involved with WWCE to help raise awareness of community energy and develop partnerships with like-minded community organisations.

Sylvia Wyatt

Non-Executive Director

Sylvia is a healthcare strategist who has worked with different organisations on complex problems in health, social care, housing and the voluntary sector. She co-developed national policies for healthcare innovation, care outside hospitals and the use of the NHS estate. Sylvia’s fascination with the natural world began when she was a child exploring the mountains and wild places of Europe, Africa, Asia and America with her family. Her Human Sciences degree from Oxford included ecology, geology, zoology and animal behaviour.

Sylvia is passionate about decarbonisation and lives in an all-electric house with an electric car. She is a keen walker, avid gardener and naturalist and has supported wildlife trusts in Scotland, Surrey, Warwickshire, Yorkshire and now Wiltshire. She is a Trustee of Wiltshire Wildlife Trust.

Jonathan Bateman

Community Fund, Committee Lead

Jon is a professional engineer specialising in water, utilities and environmental management. Formerly a director of Halcrow Management Sciences (now Jacobs) – a regulatory advisory business focussing on utility policy and regulation – he has been a member of WWCE since 2015 and a director on the board of Bath and West Community Energy since 2014. He was co-opted onto the WWCE board in 2018.

Jon has worked extensively with regulators in the water and energy sectors on strategic planning, price controls, asset management and performance monitoring. He also volunteers in community support and was recently co-opted onto an Area Community Operations Board reporting to Wiltshire Council. Jon is interested in environmental conservation, sustainable energy and enjoys long distance trail and alpine walking, as well as tending his allotment.

David Lewin

Finance Lead

David has been a non-executive director of WWCE since 2015. Over the course of his career, he founded companies Ovum and Plum and provided policy and regulatory advice to a host of international telecoms companies.

Lesley Bennett

Director

Lesley has held a number of high-profile roles with organisations in Wiltshire over the years. She was previously a Trustee of Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, a non-executive customer director with Wessex Water, a non-executive director of the South West Courts Board at the Great Western Hospital. She was the first woman mayor of Malmesbury and served as a Town District and County Councillor for 15 years, chairing the Agenda 21 and Planning Panels.

Lesley was one of the founder members of Wiltshire Wildlife Community Energy and was Chair of the Board from 2015 until 2021. She currently is chair of Wessex Community Energy Network.

Rob Gillies

Land Management Lead

Rob has been a member of Wiltshire Wildlife Trust since moving to Chippenham in 2010. Rob works in sustainability for Buro Happold, an international engineering, design and advisory firm for the built environment based in Bath. With a background in environmental and sustainability consulting, prior to moving into the environmental sector Rob worked in the postal and IT sectors, as well as in local government.

Rob is a member of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (MIEMA), a Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA). He is an enthusiastic volunteer in community development linked to environmental and sustainability issues and is the founder of Refill Chippenham, a campaign to reduce the negative environmental impacts of single-use plastics within his home town.

Advisors

Angela Wright

Company Secretary

Angela graduated from Southampton in 2002 with a BSC in Management & Accounting. She completed her certified accountancy training with Good Energy, a 100% renewable energy supplier, eventually becoming Group Financial Controller and remained with them until 2013. After a short career break, she was engaged as a consultant on behalf of companies with renewable energy interests, before aligning herself with the community energy sector in 2016.

Jake Burnyeat

Asset Manager

Jake is a renewable energy professional with over 14 years experience. He is a founding director of Communities for Renewables, a community interest company which helps communities to set up local energy enterprises and works with them to develop, finance and manage their renewable energy generation.

Jake has an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College and has sailed over 24,000 sea miles.

Samantha Burch

Stakeholder Outreach

Samantha has over 15 years experience in the communications industry, working in-house, agency side, and as a freelance public relations consultant since gaining her degree.

She joined the team at Wiltshire Wildlife Community Energy in 2021, and has since overseen the enterprise’s external communication, handling everything from press releases and broadcast interviews to newsletters and online content.

Staff

Jessica Thimbleby

Carbon Reduction Champion for WWCE and WWT

Jessica has over 10 years’ experience engaging diverse communities on a range of issues to help mitigate and adapt to climate change. Before starting her role with WWCE, Jessica worked as an energy advisor at the Centre for Sustainable Energy and Citizens Advice, supporting people experiencing fuel poverty. Before that, she spent more than five years at Wiltshire Wildlife Trust working with the Waste Education Team and later, until 2020, as the Trust’s Sustainability Officer, a role which saw her lead a project to calculate the Trust’s carbon emissions.

Jessica now supports WWCE with the pursuit of its aims to reduce carbon and promote nature-based solutions to the climate crisis. She spearheads the development of initiatives to help low-income, vulnerable households across Wiltshire to access and integrate energy-saving solutions. On behalf of the Trust, Jessica also provides administrative support to the WWCE community fund panel.