press release

16 November 2012

Canal & River Trust appoints Freight Advisory Group

The Canal & River Trust has appointed David Quarmby CBE as the Chairman of its Freight Advisory Group to help establish the Trust’s policy on inland waterway freight and provide strategic advice to the executive management on freight issues.

Mr Quarmby is a respected transport professional with a wealth of experience encompassing business, government, public bodies and academia. Joining him on the Group are practitioners and experts in waterborne freight and the wider freight/logistics industry, including:

  • Mike Garratt, Managing Director, MDS Transmodal, a logistics consultant with knowledge of all transport modes including inland waterways
  • Mark Grimshaw-Smith, Head of Rail and Sea freight operations for CEMEX UK
  • James Hookham, Managing Director, Policy & Communications from the Freight Transport Association
  • David Lowe, Chairman of the Commercial Boat Operators Association with over 40 years’ experience owning, managing and advising others on water freight businesses, passenger and hire vessels, restaurant boats, boat builders and boat yards
  • Dr Heather McLoughlin,Director of the Business School at Canterbury Christ Church University and previously Director of Sea & Water with particular knowledge of waterways, freight and logistics
  • Ian Wainwright, Road Freight Programme Manager at Transport for London and previously Senior Policy Officer for Freight having spent 18 years in the logistics business

David Quarmby comments: “I am delighted to support the Canal & River Trust and assist in developing a sustainable and affordable freight policy for the inland waterways in its care.

“Whilst it is leisure and recreation that underpins much of the canal and rivers’ renaissance, we should not forget that the waterways may still provide a viable, affordable and greener alternative to road transport in certain circumstances, particularly on the larger more commercial waterways.”

Robin Evans, Chief Executive of the Canal & River Trust, said: “I very much look forward to working with David. He has a great reputation and standing within the transport and logistics industry and I am delighted he has agreed to take on this role. David has assembled an advisory group that brings together people with considerable expertise and knowledge of inland waterway freight operation and those with knowledge of the wider logistics industry. They will help us create the right freight policy. We are fortunate to have engaged so many good people on this and our other advisory groups to provide advice and help shape policy for the nation’s waterways.”

The Freight Advisory Group will be supported by the Trust’s Head of Enterprise (South Wales and Southern England) and the North East Waterway Manager who have practical knowledge and experience of all Trust’s activities and, in particular, freight operations. In addition, John Dodwell, Trustee of the Canal & River Trust, has also been invited to attend the Advisory Group’s meeting because of his great interest and knowledge about waterway freight.

The Group will meet as necessary over the next few months to develop a freight policy. Thereafter it is intended to meet half yearly. Membership of the committee is voluntary and unsalaried although reasonable expenses will be paid to members.

If you would like to receive a copy of the Draft Freight Policy for the Canal & River Trust once it has been prepared for consultation (which is likely to be in the summer of 2013) please e-mail your contact details to .

Ends

For media enquiries please contact Jonathan Ludford on 020 7985 7275 or email

Biographies

Mr David Quarmby CBE, Chairman

David Quarmby is a respected transport professional who has accumulated a wealth of experience encompassing business, government, public bodies and academia. Following a first class degree in Engineering and Economics from King’s College Cambridge and a PhD from Leeds University in Transport Modal Choice, he first joined the Ministry of Transport as an Economic Adviser, before moving to run the Operational Research Department at London Transport.

David has a long list of business appointments and achievements. These include: Chief Planning Officer at London Transport then Managing Director of London Buses, Board Director for Logistics then Joint Managing Director of Sainsbury's, Chairman of the British Tourist Authority, Chairman of the Docklands Light Railway, Deputy Chairman then Chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority and a Board Member of Transport for London.

In recent years David has been a non-executive director of Abellio, the UK rail and bus operation owned by the Dutch railways, a director of transport and planning consultant Colin Buchanan, and directed the SeaBritain 2005 campaign, celebrating Britain’s relationship with the sea inspired by the Trafalgar Bicentenary. In 2010 David led a government review of the winter resilience of the nation’s transport systems. He was for five years Chairman of the Transport Research Institute at Edinburgh Napier University, and is currently a Visiting Professor at London South Bank University.

Currently David is Chairman of the RAC Foundation, and a Trustee of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. He was a Vice President of the Chartered institute of Transport, and President of The Institute of Logistics in the 1990’s. He holds honorary degrees from Edinburgh Napier and Huddersfield Universities, and was appointed CBE in 2003.

Mike Garratt

Mike Garratt has a BA in Economics (1971) and a Master of Transport Design (1973) from the University of Liverpool. He was employed by Berkshire C.C. to develop a land use transportation model for the county (to 1976) and by Leicester University as a research associate examining inland waterway freight opportunities (to 1978). He was subsequently employed as a Lecturer in the Marine Transport Centre at Liverpool University and then established (with colleagues) MDS Transmodal from 1982.

In his role as senior partner and then Managing Director of MDST, he has worked on studies for more or less all the principal ports in the British Isles, developed the GB Freight Model that is used for road, rail and port forecasting and engaged in a wide range of due diligence exercises for the sale, purchase and re-financing of the major port groups. For 30 years, MDST was responsible for the maintenance of waterborne freight statistics for the UK. MDST has produced ‘official’ forecasts for both the ports and rail freight networks. It has worked exclusively for individual ports on market studies and for most of the leading developers on the delivery of rail linked distribution parks. MDST also maintains global databases and forecasts for container trades, networks and financial performances and advises clients on a world-wide basis.

Mike Garratt has been a member of the Board of the Rail Freight Group for some 15 years and was previously Chairman of Sea and Water.

Mark Grimshaw-Smith

Born in Chester Mark graduated in Economics at University College, Oxford then joined Rugby Cement on their graduate scheme including, an MBA at Warwick University Business School.

A 25 year career in building materials logistics and supply chain followed.

Mark has held various line management, consultancy and project management positions in this sector covering inbound and outbound logistics for bulk and unitised products including coal, clinker, PFA, GGBFS, cement, aggregates, blocks, pavers, roof tiles, floor beams, bearers and sleepers.

He has been involved in the setup of import and export of cement and aggregates and gained international experience in Germany and Benelux, and more recently in Mexico and Spain.

Familiar with road, rail, sea and barge modes and different ownership and contract models Mark is currently Head of Rail and Sea freight operations for CEMEX UK championing the optimisation and growth of the none-road modal share of CEMEX’s UK freight, capitalising on increased vertical integration and new business opportunities.

Never to miss an opportunity to get on the water Mark was a keen oarsman, canoeist and dinghy sailor but has now slowed up a bit and offline is to be found restoring and generally messing about on his 70ft narrowboat.

James Hookham

James Hookham is Managing Director – Policy and Communications of the Freight Transport Association. FTA represents and serves the transport interests of 14,000 British businesses. James is responsible for the development of FTA membership and policy campaigning and FTA’s extensive range of information and advice services for members. He is a graduate in environmental science from the University of Bradford and holds a Masters degree from the University of Manchester.

David Lowe

Born in Shipley in 1947 David obtained a canal boat in 1970 and set up in business as a passenger boat operator, leading to restaurant boats, waterbus and hire boats plus boatbuilding and running a busy boatyard. In 1972 he obtained his first cargo barge and the business, as Apollo Canal Carriers Ltd, prospered such that by the late 1970’s some 10,000 tonnes a week of freight was being handled by water on own, hired, managed and sub-contracted craft, with the business a family concern. Though based at Shipley wharf, operations extended over the north east, northwest and midlands waterways.

David’s success at attracting freight business to the waterways, led to the Inland Waterways Association on two occasions awarding him the ‘Vivien Bulkley-Johnson Salt’ for ‘the person or organisation who, in the opinion of the Inland Waterway Freight Group, made an outstanding contribution to the furtherance of commercial waterway transport in the United Kingdom’.

David is also a professional railwayman but has retained his waterway interest with ownership of the original passenger boat, plus a historic narrow boat. Traffic Consultant with Humber Barges Ltd, he is also Chairman of the Commercial Boat Operators Association. This latter position takes David all over the UK visiting members and potential waterway freight users and meeting waterway authorities, local and national government officials and elected representatives. David sits and advises on a number of waterway interest groups, while retirement from Network Rail has allowed him to develop further his rail and waterway consultancy work, plus his music and other interests. David is licensed by the MCA as a Boatmaster and is a member of the Canal & River Trust’s North East Partnership.

Heather McLaughlin

Heather is Director of the Business School at Canterbury Christ Church University. She is an active researcher with expertise in international business, finance and logistics where she has long been involved in maritime policy development. She acted as Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Select Committee for Transport on theInquiry into the future of UK ports.More recently she has been involved in a number of European Commission projects which examine the role of water freight transport in the EU member states.

She was Director of the Centre for International Transport Management at London Metropolitan University from 2003 before becoming Head of Consultancy for the Global Policy Research Institute in 2008. During that time she established and was Director of the government funded agency Sea and Water. She remains well connected in the City of London and will become Master of theWorshipful Company of World TradersLivery in 2013.

She is currently Editor-in-Chief of the leading academic maritime journal Maritime Policy and Management and retains a close affiliation with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University where she is external adviser to the Department of Logistics and Maritime Transport.

Ian Wainwright

Having graduated from the University of Wales in 1985 with a BSc in Town Planning, Ian worked for 18 years in the logistics industry, on a range of third party contracts; for a range of customers including M&S, Tesco, British Gas and Philips and finally as Regional Operations Director for Tradeteam (Part of DHL) responsible for beer, wines and spirits distribution to pubs and clubs across London and the South East via 9 depots and over 700 staff.

A range of experiences from supply chain reorganisation, depot start-ups and closures, customer and stakeholder liaison, and Trade Union negotiation have given him a valuable insight into the issues and complexities faced by logistics companies and their customers of delivering cost controlled, high quality service within and around the London area.

Ian has now spent seven years working for Transport for London, and has been covering the development and delivery of freight policy and projects, including the Mayor’s Transport Strategy. Recently he was responsible for managing the programme to encourage operators and businesses to revise their delivery activity during the Olympics and is now planning how the changes in behaviour during the Games, such as increases in out-of-hours deliveries, can be maximised for legacy.