Local transport director and D2N2 Board Member Ian Morgan has received an OBE for services to public transport and the community.
Mr Morgan’s OBE honour was announced last June (2015) and he has now been formally presented with it, attending the investiture in London with his wife and two sons.
He is Deputy Chair of the Wellglade Group – which includes First Leicester, High Peak Buses, Kinchbus, trentbarton, TM Travel and Notts + Derby – and has been with the company for 30 years, since its inception in 1986. With a fleet of just over 500 public transport vehicles, the Wellglade Group provides services in High Peak, Sheffield, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and Leicestershire.
Since May of last year, Mr Morgan has also held a prominent place on the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) Board. D2N2 is the LEP for Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire and works to grow its area’s economy, with an over-arching target of creating 55,000 new jobs in ten years (2013-2023). It is governed by its Board, which, like the LEP, is a mixture of business, local authority, skills and training providers and higher and further education institutions.
In writing its Strategic Economic Plan (SEP) the D2N2 LEP identified areas in which Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire perform well, and where there is capacity for innovation and growth. Transport was one of these areas, due not only to key transport businesses in the area such as Toyota, Rolls Royce and Bombardier, but also owing to its excellent transport network, an asset to which the Wellglade Group contributes.
In addition to his work with Wellglade and the D2N2 Board, Mr Morgan is also Chairman of the Confederation of Passenger Transport UK, and a former President and board member of the East Midlands Chamber .
Mr Morgan said that the investiture at Buckingham Palace was “an amazing experience” and that he had spoken to HRH Prince Charles about the Wellglade Group’s work.
Speaking after the event, Mr. Morgan said: “While the honour was a complete and utter surprise, and I did not see it coming at all, I may be the custodian of the medal but it is for everyone past and present at trentbarton.
“The people who work at trentbarton have made it the leading bus company in the land and deserve to take as much credit for this award as I. Without trentbarton there would not have been an award for me, that’s for sure.”
To find out more about the other D2N2 Board Members, click here
To read a copy of D2N2’s Strategic Economic Plan, click here
