Who we are

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Jill Angold-Stephens is Town Councillor for Forest ward. She is a governor at Roding Valley High School, and an active member of Loughton Methodist Church, and she has always been involved with the Girl Guides locally.

Ken Angold-Stephens has been District and Town Councillor for Roding Ward since 2004. He is a Chartered Electrical Engineer, and most of his career was spent in broadcasting. His interests include music, photography and badminton. He is Loughton Town Mayor for 2009-10.

Ian Allsop has lived in Loughton for nearly four years having escaped from Leytonstone and regularly enjoys the delights of the nature reserve and access to Epping Forest with his young family. He is a freelance journalist and editor specialising in the not-for-profit sector and financial issues. Previously he used to edit Charity Finance Magazine, the leading journal for senior management in the voluntary sector, but gave it up to be a full-time Dad. He is a parent governor at White Bridge Infants School and his other interests include cooking, sport, music and literature.

Michael Benbow is the LRA Press Officer. He is a member of the Chartered Society of Designers and an assessor. His business advises companies how to innovate and progress ideas into profitable products. His leisure interests include mountain/hill walking, nature, squash, tennis, sub aqua and Epping Forest ecological improvement. He is a governor of two Loughton schools.

Jack Benjamin was educated at Davenant Foundation Grammar School. All his working career was in the Insurance Industry, concluding as a Director of an international firm of loss adjusters and member of the British Institute of Management. He is a widower and has three children and five grandchildren, all of whom live locally.
He is a long-standing LRA Executive Committee member. He has been a Town Councillor but chose not to stand again at the last local elections.

Rose Brookes  is Town and District Councillor for Alderton ward. She is a familiar sight as she cycles round Loughton. When she first moved to Loughton she taught at Alderton Junior School. She now works at the National Portrait Gallery. She is a member of the Methodist Church, has done voluntary work for Barnardos and raised funds for a charity for bereaved children.

Margaret Chalk is Town Councillor for Roding ward. She has lived in Loughton for 39 years and worked as a Personal Assistant and as a Secretary for a period of over 10 years. She works to protect our green spaces and countryside and has been a committee member on the Essex Wildlife Trust Epping Forest Group for 25 years, as well as a tree warden. She is also a past secretary of the Debden Community Association.

Tessa Cochrane is District Councillor for Fairmead (elected May 2010). She has lived in Loughton for over fifty years, grew up in Fairmead ward and attending Hereward School. She has had several jobs after bringing up her family, including teaching assistant and clerk to the governors at Staples Road Schools. She has a particular interest in special needs in education, as her son has learning difficulties. She loves animals, and does quite a bit of volunteer work in the Cancer Research shop and helping with pony riding for the disabled on the Roding meadows.

Richard Cohen is District Councillor for St Mary’s Ward (elected May 2010). He has lived in the ward for ten years and in nearby Chigwell before that. He is a lawyer by profession. He is involved with Rotary Club initiatives for people with special needs.

Carol Davies  is Town Councillor for Fairmead ward. She joined the LRA after she led a campaign to save Young Learner’s Nursery when Epping Forest College decide to build on it.

John Duffield is LRA committee Treasurer. He is a retired actuary and teacher. He holds a number of honorary posts, as Treasurer and Secretary of the South East Orienteering Association, Treasurer and a Trustee of the Adverse Psychiatric Reactions Information Link, Treasurer and a Trustee of Epping Forest Housing Aid Scheme, and Treasurer and a Trustee of Voluntary Action Epping Forest, the umbrella organisation for voluntary work within Epping Forest District.

Colin Finn is District Councillor for Forest ward.  He has been an LRA member for the last eighteen years and has a good knowledge of local issues. Until very recently he served - for eight years - as a Conservative Party county councillor, initially for Loughton St Johns and then for Buckhurst Hill and Loughton South. He served on numerous committees at County Hall and locally (among other things, he was, for a period, Deputy to the cabinet member of Enterprise, Planning and Commerce, and a board member of the Essex Fire Authority). At County Hall he worked closely on Loughton matters with the LRA County Councillor. For some years he was the chairman of the Board of Governors for a local primary school.  Prior to returning to the UK many years ago, he was in central Africa and South Africa for 30 years.

Chris Harper is on the LRA Committee. He is a long-serving supporter of LRA and committee member, and among other things has been an LRA County Councillor and Chairman of LRA.

Suzanne Harper  is Town Councillor for Forest ward. She served as chairman of the Town Council in 2001–02. She played a major role in the development of the community and youth centre in Borders Lane. Until recently she was co-ordinator of Loughton's Farmers Market. She is Chairman of Governors at Staples Road Infant School, a Guider for Rainbow Guides, a Tree Warden, and her most absorbing interest is English folk dancing.

Jennie Hart is District Councillor for Broadway ward (elected May 2010). She has lived most of her life in Loughton (though originally from Yorkshire) and knows the Debden area well through community projects and teaching at Oakview School. She has also worked for Debden Community Association at Loughton Hall and was a school governor. She is currently a volunteer for Home-start, helping local families bring up younger children. Her interests include horticulture, gardening and garden planning.

Peter House  is Town Councillor for Forest ward. He has retired from the family exhibition-design business now owned by his children, but still produces the LRA displays for the Farmers Market. In his spare time, he is an amateur woodworker and musician.

Lucette Howe is Town Councillor for St Mary’s ward. She has belonged to LRA since it started, and successfully campaigned for cleaner buses, bus shelters and seats, and against litter, pollution, traffic fumes and better maintenance of our roads and pavements.

Kevin Latchford  is on the LRA Committee.  He moved to Loughton in 1993 and has been a member of the LRA Executive Committee since 2004.  He is married with two children - both of whom attend local schools -and is interested in sporting links with schools and outside clubs.  He coaches cricket at South Loughton Cricket Club having passed a level 1 coaching course.  For his sins he supports Tottenham Hotspur football club.

Imogen Lawrence is LRA's Minutes Secretary.

Lance Leonard is District Councillor for Alderton ward (elected 2010). He has lived in the Ward for twenty-nine years. His varied working life has been in newspaper, television and advertising businesses. In his free time, he enjoys gardening.

David Linnell  was LRA County Councillor for Loughton St Mary's from 2001 to 2005.  He is Chairman of the LRA Committee and also has the major role of organising the LRA's responses to local planning applications.  Before retirement, he worked as an Actuary for the Prudential, a Director of the Insurance Ombudsman Bureau and a member of the Council of the Institute of Actuaries.  He was also a Governor of Roding Valley High School for seven years.  His interests are walking, travel, food and drink, reading, classical music, theatre, opera and tennis.

John Markham  is District Councillor for St John’s ward. He retired after a career as a building services electrical consulting engineer here and abroad. He has a BA degree from the Open University and was a member of the Institute of Hospital Engineers and the British Institute of Management. He is interested in art and has painted in both oils and acrylic, having studied part-time at the Chelsea and Central Schools of Art. Another interest is modern jazz and he tries to play the tenor sax. He also does work for the human rights group Amnesty International.

Katie Nicholson Katie Nicholson Town Councillor for Broadway ward. She lives in the ward and works for Epping Forest Community Church, running 'Kidz Club'.

Stephen Pewsey  is Town Councillor for St John’s ward. A project manager at the British Museum, he is an active local historian and author of numerous books on Epping Forest area and Essex. He is a member of Essex Partnership, which brings together the county council and community groups to develop a community strategy for Essex.

Juliet Pollard  is Membership Secretary for the LRA committee. She is a retired librarian with 36 years experience of local government. Her interests include libraries in the 21st century and the quality of our environment in Loughton.
 
Caroline Pond is District and Town Councillor for St John's ward, and was Chairman of the District Council in 2007-08. She has worked as a librarian with three local authorities. She is an active member of Loughton Methodist Church, and works for Loughton Voluntary Care.

Chris Pond  is County Councillor for Loughton (Central) and Town Councillor for St John's ward. He was chairman of the Town Council in 1997–98. He devised the LTC blue plaque scheme. He is chairman of the Loughton Historical Society and former vice-chairman of the Hills Amenity Society.

Tracey Thomas has lived and worked in and around Loughton nearly all her life. She has studied psychology and counselling. She has two children (the younger one is autistic), and is interested in helping families with similar problems. She feels strongly about Loughton’s green open spaces and the unique appeal of Loughton with its forest and surrounding area.

Roy Thomson is Town Councillor for St Mary’s ward. As chairman of the local residents association where he lived previously, he brings a wealth of experience to LRA.

David Wixley is District Councillor for Fairmead ward and Town Councillor for Roding ward. A football enthusiast, he has managed youth teams in Loughton, and now plays for a 'veterans' team.

Bela Yorke  is on the LRA committee. He was born in Budapest, Hungary and came to Britain in 1956. His working history mostly involved computers and he worked for ICL and NCR as a large computer system specialist and for BT as sales manager for complex IT products and networks. He retired in 1996 and ever since does what his wife tells him to do.