There are three new faces on the Road Safety GB management team following the organisation’s AGM in November 2015.
Iain Temperton (left) has moved into the role of director of communications, Sonya Hurt has been appointed vice chair 2 while Jeremy Phillips has taken up the new position of director of research.
Iain Temperton succeeds James Gibson who stood down at the 2015 AGM after six years in the post. He joined Norfolk County Council in 1990 and is currently the council’s road safety team manager. Iain, who is also a registered car and motorcycle instructor and a RoSPA diploma holder in motorcycle instruction, helped set up and manage the Road Safety GB Twitter account which now has more than 11,000 followers.
Iain Temperton said: “I’m really looking forward to building on the excellent work already done in this area. Our profession contains talented and dedicated people who strive to reduce the unnecessary toll of death and injury on our roads.
“One of Road Safety GB’s key roles is to provide a consistent voice to the public, media and other agencies, promoting best practice and sharing important messages in the most effective and innovative ways.
“Working with my fellow directors and backed by the excellent delivery of the Stennik team, I’m confident that Road Safety GB will continue to be the credible representative of road safety practitioners.”
Sonya Hurt, who sits alongside Ron Paterson as vice chair of Road Safety GB, joined Nottinghamshire County Council more than 23 years ago. She is team manager for highway safety, combining expertise to deliver a wide range of casualty reduction measures and all aspects of road safety education.
Sonya has extensive experience in the fields of road safety, safety engineering and highway design. She is heavily involved with both the safety camera and road safety partnerships for Nottinghamshire.
In an ever-changing local government environment Sonya’s work ethos is to continue to maintain a professional, forward thinking and innovative approach to delivering road safety solutions.
Jeremy Phillips, who was a speaker at the 2015 National Road Safety Conference, takes up the new position of director of research. He has been working in road safety for more than 25 years and is currently road casualty reduction team manager for Devon County Council.
He has spent time as a researcher, practitioner and operations, partnership and programme manager, including managing an amalgamated sustainable and safer travel team.
The full Road Safety GB management team comprises: Honor Byford, chair; Ron Paterson and Sonya Hurt (both vice chairs); Theresa Casbard, director of finance; Sam Merison, director of Road Safety GB Academy; Iain Temperton, director of communications; Jeremy Phillips, director of research; Judith Billingham, company secretary; and Alan Kennedy, business & operations manager. The position of director without portfolio is currently vacant.
Rod, officers from local authorities have to get permission from their employer to be officers of RSGB because of the time commitments involved. Many of the unitary authorities do not have teams and will not permit their one member of staff this opportunity. Their loss, as the experiences gained will benefit the employer two or threefold. That said we all have the opportunity to put our two-pennyworth in at local levels and above. Having worked for a county which permitted me years ago to chair a regional group of LARSOA now RSGB I can say that the experiences and networking outweighed the time factor and perhaps we need to remind councillors and chief officers from smaller authorities of the benefits of RSGB for all RSOs at all levels.
Peter, City of Westminster
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Shire counties include many large towns that are of similar size and population density to many unitary areas. There is (or was until austerity cuts) a regular circulation of people between urban and rural authorities as they progress through their careers.
It would be wrong to assume that someone who currently works in a shire county has no experience or understanding of large towns and cities and the particular challenges of working in a unitary authority.
Our RSGB regional networks enable us all to work closely with our neighbours on a very regular basis. Each of these regional groups has 1 or 2 representatives on our national Policy & Management Group who meet quarterly and who work with the Board of Directors so all voices are very much heard locally, regionally and nationally.
Honor Byford, Chair, Road Safety GB
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It’s interesting to note that of the management team with local authority experience 7 are from county councils with the only non-county council being the London Borough of Richmond.
In many of these shire counties the city is a separate unitary authority from the county council, often with quite different policies.
Whilst I can understand that sometimes things can evolve in such a way and are unplanned, I wonder if urban and city authorities shouldn’t be better represented on the management team?
Rod King, 20’s Plenty for Us
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Welcome to the team Iain, Sonya and Jeremy. Looking forward to your support, your knowledge, experience and inspiration.
Alan Kennedy – Road Safety GB
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