Meet the Team

Trustees

Ros Alexander

Ros became Chair of RLCP in March 2024. She combines a private passion for nature conservation with a career in academic teaching and research in Early Modern drama, cultural history and music. She is Professor Emeritus in English at the University of Southampton, and the author or editor of many books and articles (e.g. Ros King, A Beginner’s Guide to Shakespeare; Shakespeare and War; Literature and Music; Cymbeline: Constructions of Britain). She has experience as an adviser and trustee to various professional theatre companies and is a governor at two schools in Bury St Edmunds. She brings a multi-disciplinary, critical-thinking, and practical approach to navigating the challenges to river and landscape restoration brought about by economic, climate, and legislative changes.

Jim Stephens

Jim came to Bury St Edmunds in 2014 as a recent retiree with a whole career in water management. The Lark attracted his interest immediately and we set up the River Lark Catchment Partnership in 2015 and the registered community charity in 2018.

Jim's career highlights include:-

Working alongside and within UK water authorities and water companies before and after privatisation
Managing national and regional water reform projects in India, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria
Managing Lagoon Technology Limited a nature-based water treatment consultancy in the early 1990’s
Leading the Mott MacDonald water resources team towards the end of my career.

William Sutherland

Professor in the Conservation Science group at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of the Royal Society, Bill has lived in the Lark Valley for over thirty years. With more than eleven hundred collaborators, he created  www.conservationevidence.com, which reviews evidence for the effectiveness of over four thousand conservation actions, and provides a set of tools for making evidence-based decisions and practice (summarised in his recent edited book Transforming Conservation: A Practical Guide to Evidence and Decision Making). He is involved in exploring the role of AI in evidence synthesis but also considers the serious challenges it produces. 

He was made a Commander of the British Empire in 2021 ‘for services to evidence-based conservation’, and in 2024 won the Cosmos Prize, which included having tea with the Emperor in the Palace in Tokyo when they discussed the history of the River Thames and the River Lark. His latest venture in sharing knowledge is the YouTube Channel Bill Sutherland’s Conservation Concepts  https://www.youtube.com/@Bill_Sutherland

Chris Hainsworth

Chris Hainsworth has lived in Suffolk for over 30 years.  He works for Natural England looking after Cavenham Heath & Chippenham Fen National Nature Reserves. He is passionate about protecting and improving the countryside for wildlife, and has a strong interest in landscape and landscape history. He is a wild swimmer and kayaker and wants to improve the river Lark, as a blue space for future generations to enjoy.

Andrew Hinchley

Andrew has spent 12 years building community interest and action in the Lark catchment. His involvement commenced when the 'Leg of Mutton' land opposite the rugby club was proposed for development, potentially losing much of the charm of the Lark-side path from the Abbey Gardens to the garden centre/Rougham Road. He was co-founder of Bury Water Meadows Group which is now a well-established charitable organisation, with its volunteers sharing with West Suffolk Council, maintenance of all our central water meadows.

In 2018 Andrew became chair of RLCP. Successes include the designation of the Lark as a national flagship chalk stream, and helping to develop RLCP's citizen science as the Anglian demo for the CaSTCo (Catchment Systems Thinking Co-operative) project.

Graham Showell

Graham has 45 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry; with research experience in medicinal chemistry, physicochemistry, pre-clinical pharmacokinetics, pre-clinical project management and pre-clinical strategic planning.

From 1997 to 2010 he was Director of Discovery Chemistry, leading teams of medicinal chemists, computational chemists and drug metabolism scientists in the identification of new medicines. In addition, he managed the intellectual property (patent) portfolio.

From 2010 to October 2021, he worked as a medicinal chemistry consultant with the Wellcome Trust, on central nervous system, oncology, pain, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.

He is an inventor on 51 published patent applications and an author on 36 peer reviewed publications.

Graham joined RLCP in 1999 as a river restoration volunteer, adding citizen science work from early 2022. He became a Trustee in June 2022.

Peter Lack

Have lived in the Lark Valley for 35 years. Retired nearly 10 years ago after working for the British Trust for Ornithology for 36 years. Now spend much of my time doing natural history surveys, especially but not exclusively of birds and moths, in the local area. Interested in all things about natural world including environmental history of the local area.

Staff

Ciaran Shaffrey

Ciaran Shaffrey has been Catchment Officer for RLCP since September 2025. His responsibilities include helping develop and deliver the River Lark Catchment Plan, enabling RLCP to play its role in Anglian Water’s Flagship Chalk Stream Project and managing RLCP’s citizen science volunteers. He works with partners from across the community, including the EA, Anglian Water, farmers, businesses, and community groups. His role also includes a strong emphasis on data, both physical data collection such as invertebrate surveys, and data management and analysis through GIS mapping. In addition, he helps in the work to secure grants so that RLCP can continue to thrive and grow as an organisation.

Ciaran Shaffrey graduated with a BSc in Environmental Science from the University of East Anglia in 2025, with a focus on catchment management and nutrient pollution. He grew up volunteering on the River Pang chalk stream in Berkshire and has always been passionate about the protection of these vital ecosystems.

Glenn Smithson

Before RLCP was founded in 2015, Glenn had already been working with angling and conservation groups along the Lark for some years. RLCP’s catchment-based approach has given him the opportunity to explore further, and gain a better understanding of the Lark, its tributaries and the pressures they are facing.

Glenn’s time for RLCP is mainly spent in field research as part of the process of developing plans for restoration projects. He is pictured here with an auger to take soil samples in a quest to find the peat deposits buried in the Lark valley. He works closely with our volunteers to broaden their knowledge and experience of river restoration and conservation techniques.

Becky Poynter

Becky joined RLCP as part time administrator in autumn 2025 and has learnt more about catchment areas, fluvial audits and citizen science than she thought possible.

Working on the basis that robust governance is good governance no matter what the field, she supports the Board of Trustees on procedural and policy issues as well as being involved in the development of the website and admin tasks for the expanding organisation.

Becky continues to work in the educational sector as a freelance governance advisor, an area in which she has been involved for 25 years both as a National Leader of Governance, Clerk to Governors and Chair of various School Governing Boards.

She is also a Public Governor for the West Suffolk Hospital Trust.

Trustees		Date of current trustee appointment
Ros Alexander	Chair and Trustee	25 January 2024
Peter Lack	Trustee	25 January 2024
William Sutherland	Trustee	26 October 2023
Christopher Hainsworth	Trustee	1 February 2023
Graham Showell	Trustee	5 May 2022
James Stephens	Treasurer and Trustee	2 July 2025
Andrew Hinchley	Trustee	2 July 2025

Staff
Ciaran Shaffrey	Catchment Officer
Glenn Smithson	Restoration Leader
Becky Poynter	Administrator

Plus volunteers, members and associate members from across East Anglia.