Meet the team
Chair of the board: Alex Lawrie
Alex is an SFEDI Accredited Social Enterprise Advisor with twenty years’ experience in legal structures, financial management, community share offers, property development and project management. He is the author of the Somerset Rules, Simply Finance (Co-operatives UK, 2010) and Empowering the Earth (Green Books, 2000).
He has managed several community share issues enabling over £ 1M of social investment for two Housing Co-ops, Somerset Co-op Community Land Trust, Lightweight Community Transport, the Ecological Land Co-operative and others. In addition to Go-op, he is also a director of The Development Co-op, The Ecological Land Co-op and Somerset Co-op Community Land Trust.
Alex holds a Masters Degree in Strategy, Change and Leadership from Bristol University.
Danny Douglas
Danny serves on the board of directors of Central England Co-operative and works as the Principal for public transport at North Northants Council. He is also a Trustee of Coop College, and a member of the Institute of Logistics Transport.
David Warren
David has spent the last 15 years as a director and general manager of an innovative fabrication business.
He now plans to re-train as a train driver with Go-op.
Dr. Nick Kennedy
Dr Nick Kennedy has spent 22 years as NHS Consultant, Anaesthetist and Intensivist working in frontline acute services, as well as seven years in hospital management roles.
He has served as a non-executive director of four NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups Governing Bodies (Boards), and two joint boards, in two healthcare systems (Bristol and Devon). This has provided him with experience of several different Boards styles, culture and dynamics; he understands what is needed to ensure successful board function and build consensus.
Vice Chair: David Northey
David’s background has stem from a long career in the railway working in many fields from passenger engagement and relationships, performance and project management and more recently strategic planning. He held the post of Senior Development Manager in Network Rail from 2012 until 2022. This has primarily been across the South West and has given him intermit knowledge of infrastructure, timetables, capacity and growth areas. David also brings a wealth of knowledge from his role as a trade union rep for TSSA and believes fully in the rights of workers to be heard and to be treated fairly in the workplace. His interest in railways has enabled him to support a number of community rail groups such as Severn-side Community rail partnership, Tarka line, SERUG and friends of Bridgwater Station.
Martin Bond
Martin worked for the railways for 30 years, starting in a clerical position and working his way up through various operating positions, including timetabling and diagramming, and finishing as a training manager for various IT bespoke systems, including TOPS and Trust.
After his retirement, he was active for some time with his local rail user group for the line between Crewe and Shrewsbury, and held the position of chairman of the Association, influencing the negotiations for the new franchise, lobbying rail franchisees for improved services, and involved in specifying the replacement for the Wales and Borders franchise in 2018.
John Hassall
Chair of the Severnside branch of Railfuture for 8 years, John is a Co-Chair of Somerset Bus Partnership which works with Somerset County Council to improve bus services locally.
John has been pushing for new public transport services since he lived in Bromley and campaigned for a bus to travel between the Farnborough and Sidcup Hospitals.
In Taunton he is pressing for better links between park and ride sites and the Railway Station; and for better disabled access to public transport.
He has served as a Parish Councillor in Bishops Lydeard as a Councillor on Somerset West & Taunton Council, and volunteers with the West Somerset Railway.
Advisors to the board
Go-op’s plans and decisions are its own, and no one else is to blame for anything we get wrong. But any credit that might be available must be shared with the experts that have supported us over the recent years.
Nigel Harris of The Railway Consultancy has gone above and beyond to help us find solutions to timetabling problems and robust methodologies for forecasting demand.
Tracsis are respected throughout the industry as one of the most diligent and skilled consultancies: their static and dynamic performance analyses have been crucial in helping us make our case for extra paths.
D-Gauge have provided a detailed, mile-by-mile analysis of our route for different types of rolling stock, and we will continue to rely on them for route compatibility testing.
Gemini have brought their experience of maintaining and modifying rolling stock to the problem of decarbonisation – specifically, helping us to deliver an Innovate UK funded study into the conversion of EMUs to battery power.
Southampton University’s Wolfson Unit did great work modelling the energy savings that we could get with reduced wind resistance – another Innovate UK funded piece of work.
Lastly, thanks to the co-operative development bodies in the South West that have supported us. Somerset Co-op Services CIC (now South West Co-operative Development) were crucial in the early gestation of our co-op; we’ve also had useful advice and guidance from CAN (assist.coop) and Co-operative Futures.