Ray is an award-winning professional environmental manager and has been a green campaigner for more than forty years.   He has had a successful career in environmental management with public, private and voluntary sectors, specialising in improving recycling and resource management and presently works as a senior manager in a major Scottish environmental organisation.

Ray has been an active Liberal Democrat for more than twenty years and is an experienced community champion having served as a Councillor on Otley Town Council from 2015-2021 and was Council Leader from 2015-2019.  He was previously Chair of Leeds North West Liberal Democrats, overseeing the successful re-election to Westminster of Greg Mulholland in 2015. He is a member of the Green Liberal Democrats, Liberal International and Liberal Democrat Humanists & Secularists, and a long-standing supporter of Humanists UK. He represented the Party in the 2019 General Election, contesting Bishop Auckland.

Ray lives in Duns with his wife and two sons.  The family are active in local rugby, football and cultural activities and their two-year-old cocker spaniel Cocoa also keeps them busy.  Ray is slowly creating a vegetable garden and finding occasional time for cycling, but cycling which is very gentle down our lovely quiet back lanes, not racing on the roads!  It’s easier to dodge the potholes on the back lanes..

In his professional career, Ray has been a leading figure in the recycling and resource management sectors over many decades.  He has been an award-winning campaigner and advocate for sustainable waste management, working with public, private and community sectors in roles to Director and Chief Executive level.  He was nominated Industry Leader of the Year 2016 by the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management and was appointed MBE for services to sustainable waste management in the Millenium Honours List 1999.