Derrick Stoppard – studied geography at the university of Sheffield. Apart from two spells, at the university of Sussex, where he co-authored the Crawley expansion study, and at a London-based firm of quantity surveyors, his working life has been spent in local government.  He headed up research teams in the planning departments at the London borough of Redbridge and South Yorkshire county council and then moved to Barnsley council where he became closely involved in preparing bids for central government and European funds.  Among the former were two successful city challenge programmes, the treasury’s invest to save fund and the single regeneration budget.

 Among the European funds he was closely involved in developing the South Yorkshire objective 2 programme and was seconded to work with Sheffield Hallam university on its evaluation for the European commission

He also played a significant role in developing Barnsley’s community plan which brought together the strategies of all public and third sector bodies contributing to the regeneration of the borough.

On retirement and in the final years of his local government career, when he worked part time, he became a self-employed consultant.  The projects he worked upon included helping Barnsley secondary schools secure funding from new government initiatives, widening participation in post 16 learning for the council’s education directorate, evaluating the achievements of the neighbourhood learning net (to encourage more adults into learning)  for Barnsley association of community partnerships and drafting the Fit for the Future strategy for Barnsley health authority.