A Well Deserved Honour for Professor John Whitelegg. August 2020

The Foundation for Integrated Transport has appointed Professor John Whitelegg as one of its first two Senior Fellows. John and I are good friends and colleagues in the transport sector. We first met at UCW Aberystwyth back in the heady days of 1967-70. Whilst I ventured into the morass of transport operations, John has gone on to become one of the foremost leading environmentalists, transport economists and planners in Britain today.

Whilst our paths went separate ways for many years after Aberystwyth, contact was resumed when John moved to Church Stretton. Our first meeting, in the Ludlow Brewery was as if time had never intervened. We just picked up where we had left off all those years ago.

A man who does not mince his words, John’s blunt North Country approach to important and vital matters such as sustainable integrated transport and climate change has earned him a well-deserved place as a lead champion of the environment. It has also earned him a few enemies, especially those who find it difficult to counter his well-structured reasoning and immense breadth of knowledge.

A lucid speaker, he is in much demand both in Britain and abroad. We should consider ourselves very lucky that we have such a champion in the Borders, now that John lives in Shrewsbury. Despite the many calls on his time, John relishes getting involved in local issues, in particular sustainable transport in Shropshire and Herefordshire. His latest effort is a report on Shropshire Rural Buses for the Foundation for Integrated Transport which has led to the establishment of the Shropshire Wide Bus Upgrade Project. John is also Honorary President of Rail & Bus for Herefordshire.

Gareth Davies, HSTG