Board Member Profiles

Ruth Barden: Co-opted Board Member (Joined 2020)

Ruth is Director of Catchment & Environment at Wessex Water.

Will Bond: Independent Board Member (Joined 2013, re-appointed 2022)

Will Bond has been Vice Chair of the LNP Board since its inception. He is a farmer and owner of the Holme Estate near Wareham on the poor, heathy, north Purbeck soils and the wet River Frome valley. The estate includes parts of the river with its fishing, flooding, drainage and ecological interests. The estate also includes forestry, quarrying, and three SSSIs. He installed one of the UK’s earliest District Heating Schemes into the hamlet of East Holme, fuelled by woodchip from ecological management on the estate. His renewables interest continues with solar and wind generation schemes under construction.

Will also founded Alaska Ecological Contracting, specialising in large scale, innovative, and sensitive habitat work around the UK. Over the last 40 years Alaska has enjoyed being at the forefront of new and better techniques and equipment to restore biodiversity. He has just stepped down from chairing the Dorset CLA, but remains on their national environment committee, and contributes to a number of other ecological and land management groups, including contributing specialist advice to the Committee for Climate Change. He is frustrated that so much emphasis is on planting trees, when it is the woodland soils that sequester most carbon.

Fiona Bowles: Co-opted Board Member (Joined 2023)

Fiona Bowles is an ecologist and manager with 40 years of experience in the water industry whose key interest in the holistic management of river catchment management. As chair of the two Catchment Partnerships within Dorset, the Poole Harbour and the Stour Catchment Initiatives, she has a long understanding of the water environment of Dorset, plus the financial and planning issues associated with the water industry. With a strong personal interest in chalk rivers, she is a trustee with the River Restoration Centre and the Wessex Rivers Trust, as well as having academic links to universities, the Game and Wildlife Trust and sitting on the NERC Advisory Network. As a member of the National Steering group for the Catchment based approach, her key interest is in the effective sharing of knowledge and partnership working for the benefit of nature for the Dorset countryside and coast.

David Brown: Independent Board Member (Joined 2022)

David is an ecologist and lifelong environmentalist, and has worked professionally in nature conservation for over 25 years. Since 2012 he has worked for the National Trust as part of their Purbeck Estate team. Initially recruited as ecologist for the Cyril Diver project, which involved mobilising Dorset’s naturalist community to survey the Studland peninsula, since 2016 his role has focussed more on developing partnerships for nature across the wider landscape. Work ranges from integrating the Trust’s tenanted farms into a strategy for nature recovery, to playing a lead role in establishing and developing the Purbeck Heaths National Nature Reserve. Within the NNR David has led on proposals to introduce beaver to Studland and is on the steering group of the Purbeck Heaths Wild Grazing project.

Prior to being in Dorset David’s career was split between 6 years managing a series of community nature reserves in Derbyshire, and 10 years running a consultancy in Galicia, Spain, where he led conservation projects and developed strategy within a landscape facing rapid socio-economic and land-use change. The chance to work in large wilded landscapes was an inspiration that helped re-set his understanding as an ecologist and emphasised the need to think at scale and work with natural processes.

Imogen Davenport: Co-opted Board Member & Co Vice Chair (Joined 2020)

Imogen Davenport has been closely involved for over 20 years in nature conservation in Dorset, including development of biodiversity strategy, landscape-scale approaches, planning policy and Local Wildlife Sites (SNCIs), as well as development of Dorset Local Nature Partnership itself.   She has worked for Dorset Wildlife Trust since 1996, and as a member of the Senior Management Team since 2001. She currently heads up DWT’s Nature-based Solutions team.  She has a degree in Environmental Science and prior to moving to Dorset a background in environmental volunteering, ecological survey and countryside management. She was instrumental in setting up the LNP and has been a supporting officer since its formation and joining the board in 2020.

Lee Hardy OBE JP: Independent Board Member & Co Vice Chair (Joined 2020)

Born in, and a life-long resident of, Dorset Lee Hardy is dedicated to protecting and enhancing the outstanding natural environment of the county.  His particular interest is the stunning Dorset coastal region where the marine domain and blue economy co-exist.  He is an advocate for technology and datasets which can be brought to bear to enrich sustainability and natural capital for the benefit of all.   

Following a long and operationally focused career in the Royal Navy, and latterly leading an overseas territory on behalf of the UK government, he now advises widely on blue economy matters.  He is also the director of Project Verumar which is assisting the government of the Philippines to combat the scourge of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

Lee Hardy is a Poole Harbour Commissioner and a member of the Dorset Council Harbours Committee.  He is also active in the voluntary sector, serving as a magistrate on the Dorset bench, Vice-Chair of the Dorset Coastal Forum, as a member of the Dorset Local Access Forum and a trustee of  Poole Sea Cadets.

Dougal Hosford: Independent Board Member (Joined 2022)

Dougal Hosford is a second generation tenant farmer on the Bryanston Estate near Blandford in Dorset. The family have been farming there for over 60 years and Dougal has a particular interest in conservation, managing a large stewardship scheme on the farm in harmony with the 1650 acres of combinable crops, 200 breeding ewe flock and 60 head suckler herd. Several of the traditional farm buildings have been converted to light industrial and office lets.  The farm is moving to a more regenerative system of production using less tillage, less chemicals and artificial fertilisers with the aim of improving the soil biology and organic matter content.

Dougal is Chairman of the Trustees of Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group South West (FWAGSW).  He is chairman of the Dorset Wildlife Trust Agricultural Panel and has been sitting on the panel of the Dorset AONB FIPL group.

Dougal won the FWAG SW Barn Owl trophy in 2013 and was runner up in the Silver Lapwing in 2014. In his spare time Dougal is a keen hockey and tennis player, runs a small game shoot and grows all his own vegetables for the family.

Durwyn Liley: Independent Board Member (Joined 2020)

Durwyn is an enthusiastic naturalist and a committed environmentalist. He is a director and founder of Footprint Ecology, an ecological consultancy based in Purbeck that works across the UK undertaking nature conservation, conservation-planning and visitor survey projects. Working with local authorities, NGOs and statutory bodies, much of Footprint Ecology’s work concerns the UK’s most important wildlife sites. Durwyn’s research interests are focused on the interface between countryside access and nature conservation, and much of his work relates to understanding recreation use and managing access at countryside sites.

In Dorset, Durwyn’s work on urban impacts to wildlife sites, particularly around the Dorset Heaths and Poole Harbour have shaped planning policy and he has undertaken a range of Habitats Regulations Assessment work for local authorities in Dorset. Prior to founding Footprint Ecology, Durwyn worked for the RSPB, Butterfly Conservation and English Nature. He has authored a range of reports, journal papers and books, including co-authoring a guide to Britain’s Habitats.

Luke Rake: Dorset LEP Representative & LNP Chair (Joined 2018)

An Oxford-educated zoologist with a passion for physical engagement with the natural world and born and raised in Devon. Luke has previously been the Principal and Chief Executive of Kingston Maurward College.  A lifelong educator, specialising in biology alongside outdoor education, Luke has held roles in both schools and colleges including spells as Head of Biology and Head of Sixth Form.  Luke has held Fellowship of the Linnean Society for nearly 20 years in recognition for his work in promoting biological understanding.

As part of current wider engagement in Dorset, Luke is a board member of the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) Board as Rural Lead, member of the Skills Group and LEP representative to the LNP.  He is also Chair of the Dorset’s Careers and Enterprise Steering group, where he advises on skills and training needs across the county, particularly within agri-environment sectors, as well as being SW England Director for Landex, the national membership body for land-based colleges.

Brett Spiller: Independent Board Member (Joined 2022)

Brett is a Chartered Town Planner and Charter Waste Manager.  He has over 22-years planning experience, gained across the public sector, corporate sector (managing the planning, estates and permitting team of a pioneering resource and low carbon energy company), as well as in consultancy.  Brett is a past Regional Chairman of the Royal Town Planning Institute and a member of the Dorset LEP Strategic Infrastructure Committee.  Brett founded Chapman Lily Planning in 2015, a thriving consultancy headquartered in Wareham and working on an array of projects along the south coast.  Brett has a longstanding passion for innovation, addressing the causes of climate change and collaborating with others to optimise the public benefits of new development.