Road Safety GB is delighted to announce three board level appointments, including Sam Merison as the organisation’s new chair.
The appointments were made at the 2023 Road Safety GB AGM on 15 November.
Sam steps up to the role of chair having spent the last year as vice-chair, creating a vacancy which will be filled by Nicola Foster.
Meanwhile, former chair Philippa Young becomes a director to support the work of the Road Safety GB Academy.
James Gibson, executive director of Road Safety GB, said: “The board is very pleased to announce the appointment of Sam Merison as Road Safety GB’s new chair.
“Sam has had a longstanding involvement with Road Safety GB and the board look forward to working with him in the role of chair as well as with Nicola and Philippa, to continue to take the organisation forwards.”
Sam Merison is the road safety manager for both the London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames and Wandsworth Council. He has nearly 20 years’ experience of working in road safety within local authorities, predominantly education and training, but more recently on the policy and engineering side as well.
Sam was head of the Road Safety GB Academy between 2013 and 2020, a period which saw the introduction of a suite of courses and framework of training for road safety professionals.
Prior to stepping into the vice-chair role in 2022, Sam was a director of the Academy as well as vice-chair of the Road Safety GB London regional group.
Nicola Foster is chair of the Safer Essex Roads Partnership (SERP). She started her highways training 33 years ago as a technician.
She is a Fellow of the IHE and holds a masters in Road Safety Engineering.
As the chair of SERP, Nicola is leading the charge towards Vision Zero and the Safe System approach in the county (which includes both Southend and Thurrock).
Philippa Young served as chair of Road Safety GB from November 2023 to November 2023.
Prior to that, she spent two years as the organisation’s vice-char.
With more than 25 years’ experience in the profession, Philippa has managed both safety engineering and road safety ETP teams, as well as school travel planning teams in local authorities across the country.
The full Road Safety GB management team line-up can be viewed here and The Academy management team here.
Many congratulations to Sam and all appointees. It’s great to see RSGB continuing to be led by experienced, capable and forward thinking practitioners.
Honor Byford, Middleham
+1