Hook Norton Community Land Trust

Cathy lives in Hook Norton and works as Community Engagement Manager at Low Carbon Hub, Oxford, supporting over 40 low carbon community groups across Oxfordshire. She led the community engagement on the HNCLT housing project. She is motivated by the inequality in the housing crisis and how it disproportionately affects young people and families on low incomes. She worked for many years as a theatre designer, involved in diverse projects from community operas with inner city primary school children to designing forum theatre productions with groups of people experiencing homelessness in London.

Fiona works as the Communities Lead at Collaborative Housing providing front-line support to community-led housing groups across the Thames Valley. She has over 35 years’ experience in the development and management of affordable housing working within housing associations and local authorities. She is an accredited CLH Advisor through the Institute of Housing and lives in Chipping Norton.

Charlie lives and owns an architectural design practice in Hook Norton. He became a Director of the project once he had completed the design contract as he had been so heavily involved in the community engagement and design work and was passionate about seeing it through. As well as running his design practice, Charlie writes and presents a number of television programmes on buildings and design and gives talks on all aspects of the built environment and sustainability.

Andrew moved to Hook Norton in 1980 where he served as Head Teacher of the local primary school, which was housed in the old prefabricated rural secondary school building. Over the next few years, he was heavily involved in ensuring that the replacement school building was built to serve the whole community. During this time, he became aware of how important it was to ensure that the village had affordable houses to prevent further loss of indigenous village families and joined HNCLT to support this aim. 

Max moved to the area two years ago, and has a background as a Business Executive across sectors including design, manufacturing, e-commerce, IT, investment and blockchain. Max noticed that Hook Norton is a leading light in the area, in providing community projects and services to locals, and would like to do what he can to encourage this. He was keen to join the HNCLT Board to aid these local projects, alongside learning more about the community.  

Richard has lived in Oxfordshire for most his life. He moved to Hook Norton in 2021, was married there, and his youngest child attends the village nursery. He has a background in the operational management of complex, public-facing buildings and has worked for a variety of outsourcing companies. He currently manages the facility operations for a prominent University. He joined the HNCLT board in 2023 to use his experiences to support local initiatives, and to be more involved in the village and assist in the running of long-lasting community-led facilities. .

Annabel moved to Hook Norton five years ago but lived just outside the village for 16 years. Her three children went to both playgroup and the primary school and Annabel is an active member of many village groups. Annabel runs her own online gift business but before moving to Oxfordshire was New Media Communications Manager at the NSPCC, specialising in young people-facing communications, so has first-hand knowledge of the issues facing young people trying to find their way in the world, housing being a prime concern.

Anne has lived in Hook Norton for more than 20 years. She is passionate about supporting the community and ensuring the village has sustainable, affordable housing for the future. Anne has extensive finance and governance skills. She is a qualified Chartered Accountant with more than 30 years’ experience of board membership as both an Executive and Non-executive Director. She is a member of Council at Swansea University and a trustee / advisor to three charities. Until recently, she was Vice Chair of Oxford University Hospitals, which runs the Churchill, Horton and John Radcliffe hospitals and the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre.