Meet the team behind West London Farm!

Trustees
A diehard Londoner, Head Trustee Antonia shares her life with three children and eight animals: three dogs, two cats, two Kunekune pigs and a snake called Montgomery.

The seed for West London Farm was sown when Antonia walked from Land’s End to John O’Groats and her aim is to enable Londoners to experience the positive aspects of country life.

Antonia Pugh-Thomas graduated from Bristol University and shortly thereafter established her eponymous business in the fashion industry.

Antonia combines business acumen with financial nous: she has succeeded in a notoriously fickle industry, creating a financially viable enterprise that is entering its twenty-fifth year.

Antonia also works on a voluntary basis for Pets As Therapy in her local hospital and sees the joy and psychological benefits that animals confer on humans.

Richard read Natural Sciences at Trinity College Cambridge. He qualified as a Chartered Account in 1991 and has had a 15 years’ experience advising leading UK based companies as a corporate financier with Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Nomura.

In 2006, he moved to industry and has had senior finance roles with Vodafone (Group Director and M&A and Investor Relations, member of Finance Leadership team) and Ladbrokes PLC (Investor Relations Director and CFO).

Richard is currently Finance Director and Compliance Officer for Finance and Administration at Greenberg Traurig LLP, the UK arm of a leading international Law Firm.
Jerry runs an architectural practice that is committed to developing sustainable low-energy architectural solutions achieved by understanding their client’s requirements and mimicking natural systems whilst embracing cutting edge developments in construction and computer technologies. They design buildings that bring architecture and nature together.

Tate Harmer Architects advise developers on their sustainability strategies. They have significant experience in the technical delivery of low-carbon technologies but their advantage as a practice is the ability to establish a holistic sustainability strategy with the client. This environmental concept can then be used as a basis for all future decisions on the development.

Tate Harmer Architects have worked on The Core at the Eden Project and are continuing to work at Eden on an ongoing basis. They have also designed The National Wildflower Centre in Liverpool, the iHub in Northamptonshire, the Watergate Bay Hotel in Cornwall and a new Ecotown, which is also in Cornwall.

Mark was born in London’s Chelsea Physic Garden and is the Curator of the Cruickshank Botanic Garden at the University of Aberdeen. Before moving North, Mark was a key figure at the Eden Project in Cornwall. Whilst at Eden, he managed the tertiary education programme and headed up its 35-strong team of guides. Mark is particularly knowledgeable in the field of conservation and is well known in horticultural circles. Mark’s horticultural career has also included spells in Canada, Australia and the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London as well as Threave Gardens in Castle Douglas.
Allegra has been cooking professionally for 25 years. In 2004, Allegra co-founded LEON, the award-winning, healthy, fast food restaurant group. Six months after opening, LEON was named the “Best New Restaurant in Great Britain” at the Observer Food Monthly Awards, and in 2008 it won the Palme d’Or for the Best Restaurant Concept in Europe.

Over the years she has worked as a chef consultant to many businesses, mostly within the area of public space eating, such as The Royal Parks, The Tabernacle (a community centre in Notting Hill) and the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Since 2010 she has been a consultant to Pret a Manger.

Allegra is a patron of the Fairtrade Foundation, a Fellow of the RSA, a spokesperson for Compassion in World Farming and sits on the Advisory Board for Good Catch Sustainable Fish Forum. She is also patron of The Food Chain (a charity that delivers hot meals to people with HIV and AIDS), as well as the Notting Hill Farmers’ Market and the London Gay Symphony Orchestra.

Ami graduated from the University of Liverpool in 2011. She has worked as a farm animal veterinary surgeon ever since, also undertaking a Junior Clinical Training Scholarship and a PhD in dairy cattle lameness at the Royal Veterinary College.

Ami credits her successful first-time application to veterinary school to her work experience on city farms as a teenager, and truly understands the value of offering rural education experiences to those from urban backgrounds and aspiring vets unable to commute to remote farm placements.

Now based in Essex, Ami is practice Principal of Westpoint Farm Vets in Chelmsford where she works with all manner of production animals ranging from commercial units, pet farm animals, open farms and smallholdings. Part of VetPartners, Westpoint Farm Vets are 100% farm animal practices spanning the country. Her non-clinical interests at work include veterinary business marketing and promoting veterinary wellbeing in practice.

Ami particularly enjoys attending to the particular needs of smallholder and multi-species clients as well as commercial camelid enterprises, and is currently undertaking her RCVS Certificate in Advanced Veterinary Practice in camelid medicine. She is the head of the small ruminant and camelid clinical working group for Westpoint and also leads the camelid clinical interest group for VetPartners.

Our Crowdfunder

We’d very much appreciate if you could click below and pledge whatever you can on our crowdfunding page, hosted by justgiving.com. If you can’t donate then please share the link with others. It all helps, thank you!

justgiving.com