Philip Woodhouse
I have a long and close working relationship with the City…frighteningly for nearly fifty years, starting as a messenger aged 14 working in my school holidays, and then at the age of twenty I started working on the London Commodity Futures Exchange trading cocoa, coffee and sugar. The majority of my working life has been at ED & F Man and Tate & Lyle in the sugar business, although my family’s involvement in the City can trace its origins back to 1750 in St Dunstan’s Hill as City merchants. We learnt that making barrels was not as exciting as trading the contents of the barrel!
I was fortunate to be elected in 2013. I was a late entry to the election that year but was well supported by the voters in the Ward. I hope you will consider supporting Judith Pleasance and me again, please.
I have been fortunate to be involved in many Corporation committees. I was Chair of the Epping Forest and Commons Committee (EFCC) when we celebrated the 800th anniversary of the Forest Charter a legacy of ancient trees and landscapes (the sister statute to the Magna Carta). We also received the invite from Queen Elizabeth II for Epping Forest to be part of the Commonwealth Canopy, a network now of 54 countries, bringing 115 sites and some 12 million hectares (29 million acres plus) of forest under its umbrella. The EFCC looks after the City’s green spaces of Epping Forest, Burnham Beeches, Coulsdon Common and Kenley airfield. These green spaces are a vital part of our City responsibilities; visitors to Epping Forest alone reached 23 million in 2021. These City green spaces are vital to those living in and around London and provide an educational benefit to many school age Londoners.
I currently chair The City of London Freemen’s School Board of Governors, this has been six years of turbulent times in Education (covid, home schooling, VAT, policy changes etc) but with my fellow Governors and our exceptional staff at Freemen’s we continue to be a school that is excelling. It has been an honour to be part of a school going from strength to strength that works closely in supporting the sharing of best practises across family of City schools (maintained primary, academies and independent).
I am also Deputy Chair of The Markets Board. The Markets Board operates the three London wholesale markets Smithfield, Billingsgate and New Spitalfields. This is a very complicated time as the City has lodged a Private Bill in Parliament for the ultimate closure of Smithfield and Billingsgate Markets. I have a concern about London’s Food security with this change to hundreds of years of history. If re-elected with your support, I would hope to step up to the roll of Chair to work through these complicated times at the Markets. Those Merchants at the three markets who know me well are I believe supportive of this.
I have been active in other Corporation Committees and Boards, the Policy and Resources committee at the heart of all City activities, The Finance Committee and The Investment Committee (the money). I am instrumental with the support of the Chairman of Policy and Resources in establishing a working group to really look into the ‘art of the possible’ at Leadenhall Market. This is a massively exciting project and I look forward to sharing some of the ideas with you. Other vital areas of interest to the City are The Corporate Services Committee (employee related best practice) and the Children and Community Services(rough sleeping, community matters). I hope the giving of time to the City has been beneficial to the electorate and City across all these committees.
It should be pointed out that I am not someone to shy away from asking the difficult questions at any meeting.
The full list of my involvement is available here.
I have been a signed up supporter of both the City Corporation’s Diversity Charter and have promoted this as both Chair and currently Deputy Chair of the Livery Committee (the Committee that works with all 112 Companies and Guilds with over 47,000 members). The Livery Committee are about to present the latest philanthropic giving across the Livery and Guilds. This totals over £80 million annually plus thousands of hours of probono work for great causes.
The involvement with Livery stems from being part of The Grocers and having the opportunity of being Master in 2012/3. I continue to work tirelessly across the Livery and was instrumental with the Livery Committee in establishing the very successful Livery Committee website, a place to go for almost any information from how to join a Livery Company to News and events.
As in previous elections, I am standing as an Independent in Langbourn Ward with Judith Pleasance. I remain so grateful to those who voted for me in 2013, 2017 and 2022, and will work tirelessly for Langbourn and the City in the future if re-elected.
I have very much enjoyed the past twelve years, being involved and chairing committees, which has given me the opportunity to help facilitate changes for the benefit of both our community in the City and around London. I am a passionate advocate for the City’s global position as the most important financial, professional, tech and historic centre, and would relish the chance to continue to promote this wonderful City and work for our electorate.
Please do contact me as I would love to meet you and discuss the numerous activities and issues that are important today and for the future
Thank you for reading this.
Philip
