Stephen is an experienced Transport Planner - who has undertaken a variety of roles across both the public and private sector since securing a Master’s degree in Transportation Planning and Policy from the University of Newcastle on Tyne in 1992.

He has worked at Warrington Borough Council since March 2006 and was appointed as Service Manager to the newly formed Transport for Warrington Service in 2014. He is responsible for a wide range of transport functions including the securing of funding for, development and delivery of major transport schemes, the production of the Council’s transport strategy and Local Transport Plan and a wide range of other day to day functions including traffic management, road safety, parking services, travel planning, social transport and public transport. He also the Operational Traffic Manager for the Council responsible for ensuring it meets its Network Management Duty under the 2004 Traffic Management Act.

Prior to this he worked for CH2MHill and Jacobs consultancies providing a range of transport services and advice to both public and private sector clients and also for Cheshire and Swindon Councils.

He gained chartered membership of both the Institution of Highways and Transportation and Institute of Logistics and Transport in 1996 and attends events regularly and has presented to regional events on a number of occasions.

Since 2015 he has represented Warrington Borough Council on the Transport for the North Executive Board and he provides advice to members and senior officers across the sub region on strategic transport issues. A key part of his role currently is to ensure Warrington’s interests are well represented in the Transport for the North Strategic Transport Plan and the development of transformational rail schemes including HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail.

More recently Stephen has taken a lead on the successful Warrington Zero Emission Buses Regional Areas (ZEBRA) and Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) bids, both of which have been successful bringing in almost £40m of Government funding to deliver a step change improvement to bus services for Warrington. A local fare capping scheme and enhanced bus services and bus priority are being introduced from 2023 onwards and a new all electric bus depot is now in place and 105 electric buses which entered service in 2024-2025 and operated by Warrington Council’s highly successful council owned operator Warrington’s Own Buses.

In July 2025 Stephen was appointed as Director of Place (Transport, Planning and Property) retaining all of his previous responsibilities and adding all aspects of Planning including Development Management and Planning Policy and also responsibility for the council’s property portfolio and joining the council’s Senior Leadership Team (SLT).