About us
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Jock Coats: Co-Chair
Jock’s first career was on the Stock Exchange with stints at various stock-brokers and jobbers straight out of school, culminating in private client equities portfolio management. He then moved into developing IT systems for investment management and banking applications in the late 1980s and has been involved in IT support and development ever since, moving to Oxford in 1993 and to Oxford Brookes University in 1996.
Fran Ryan: Co-Chair
Fran Ryan is a granny and a freelance Chartered Occupational Psychologist and earns her living working in Human Resources in the private and public sectors. She has previously had 13 years middle management experience in financial services during which time she managed some sizable budgets and turned round some difficult situations. She has co-written a book on participative planning (Futures that Work in 2002) and has contributed to two books on self-management (most notably People in Charge 1999).
Vyv Salmon
Vyvyan lives and works in Oxford and has over 40 years’ experience in managing residential and small scale commercial property. He is currently self employed managing a small residential property portfolio. He also has extensive knowledge of town planning having been a lecturer in Economics for Estate Management and Town Planning students at Oxford Brookes University 1973 to 1989.
He has extensive director experience:
Laura King
Laura King is both a user and enthusiast of innovative affordable housing in Oxford and works in a Surveyor's Office in the city centre.
Tony Crofts
Writer and social campaigning activist, Tony Crofts is a Quaker who founded Stonesfield Community Trust in 1993. Stonesfield Community Trust now owns 14 dwellings for letting at affordable rents to young working couples, and single people of all ages, including single parents. It also owns the village Post Office and the village pre-school premises, and is celebrated as the first successful community land trust set up in Britain since Letchworth Garden City in 1903.
Larry Sanders
Larry has been a county councillor for four years and is the Leader of the Green Group on Oxfordshire County Council. He has used his position to bring Land Trusts into discussion, particularly in meeting the increasing need for accommodation for Older People.
He sees that community land trusts tackle two of the major issues of our time: the need for homes at a price that most people can afford and the building of community. He is a trained lawyer and social worker. He has been a university lecturer in Social Work and Social and Health Care Law.
Stuart Major
Stuart Major lives and works in South Oxfordshire and as such has direct experience of the lack of affordable housing. He is a director of fresh air theatre, an innovative Oxfordshire based theatre company producing works focusing on social and environmental issues including healthy eating, sustainable transport, and climate change. Previously,
Stuart established regional teams of street campaigners persuading members of the public to join Friends of the Earth.