Casey Morrison, Chair of Trustees

Casey is Love Leeds Parks’ Chair. His day job is for the Future Parks Accelerator, working with 27 local authorities across the UK helping them take a longer-term, strategic approach to funding and maintaining their public greenspaces. Born in Leeds, he’s worked for the National Trust across the north of England, the Big Lottery Fund Policy Unit on social programmes, and he set up an Action Research Social Enterprise. He has been a non-exec director of the Yorkshire Regional Voluntary Development Agency and has Post Graduate Qualifications in Conflict Resolution, leadership and Management. He’s interested in open data, self-organising groups and democratising public space for social outcomes. He’s @caseymorrison on Twitter.

Lynda Kitching, Vice-Chair of Trustees

Lynda is our Vice-Chair. She grew up in Leeds although has had spells living elsewhere. She has over 20 years’ experience as a volunteer in Leeds’ greenspaces. She is Chair of Leeds Parks & Greenspaces Forum, Secretary of Friends of Beckett Street Cemetery, a member of Guiseley in Bloom, a committee member of Friends of Springfield Park & Guiseley Wells and a working party member of the Friends of Roundhay Park (formerly a Trustee and events organiser).

Dean Ellison, Trustee

Dean has lived in Leeds since 2017 and in that time has extensively explored Leeds’ parks, rivers and canals, making him feel very much at home in the city. Having benefitted so much from this green and blue space himself, he now wants to do his part in making it more accessible to people across Leeds.

He has ten years’ experience working in spatial data analysis and in this time has looked at the differences in what communities have access to local green space. He looks forward to working with Love Leeds Parks to improve this accessibility and to ensure parks are developed to best serve the needs of their local communities.

Justin Scully, Trustee

Justin is General Manager of the Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal World Heritage Site. Fountains is one of the busiest properties in the National Trust, attracting 600,000 visitors a year. Justin has worked for the National Trust for 11 years and in his 5 years at Fountains has overseen multi-million pound investment in visitor infrastructure as well as the Skell Valley project – a £2.5m Landscape scale conservation project. Prior to the Trust Justin worked in the charity sector in the UK & Africa, after a 10-year career in the private sector.

John Preston, Trustee

John has lived in Leeds for over thirty years and worked in practical conservation for four decades as a volunteer, then a project officer with The Conservation Volunteers, followed by two decades developing Hollybush as an inclusive environmental volunteering centre. His current role is Business Development Manager for TCV covering Northern England. He is looking forward to continuing his efforts to improve green spaces in Leeds, many of which he uses for recreation, bird and wildlife watching.

Sarah Campbell, Trustee

Sarah lives in East Leeds close to where much of Love Leeds Parks activities take place. She is a passionate advocate of green spaces knowing first hand what a healing role they play in people’s well being and how important it is to have accessible green space for all. She is a strong believer in community ownership and the importance of local people shaping the areas that they are a part of. Thus Love Leeds Parks ambitions to ‘democratise public space for social outcomes’ aligns closely with her values. Sarah spends her day job advocating for and creating new democratic spaces for people to shape and influence the policy decisions that shape their lives, supporting institutions to become more inclusive and equitable in how they develop solutions to improve everyday lives.

Chloe Sykes, CEO

Chloe has worked in the non-profit sector for a decade, leading high-value income generation and partnership programmes for both regional and national charities. She joined Love Leeds Parks in January 2023, to manage the day-to-day running of the charity and provide strategic direction alongside the board of trustees. With a background in advocating for marginalised communities and the charities striving to support them, Chloe is passionate about working with community partners to address inequalities in access to parks across the city, so that all residents can benefit from quality greenspace that they love. Her role is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund and with thanks to National Lottery players.