Transport Watch was registered in October 2002. Our objective is to become the non-governmental point of reference for factual data dealing with Transport generally and road and rail in particular. We welcome contributions from any person provided the contributions give references to sources and, as far as is possible, the source numbers and calculations upon which conclusions may be based.

Our director is Paul F Withrington.

He graduated from Bristol University in 1962 with a BSc in Civil Engineering.

He then worked, as a site Engineer, through the big freeze of 1962/3 winter, on the Thorpe Marsh Power Station near Doncaster for main Contractor, Mitchell Construction Co. From there he was transferred to the wilds of the Loch Awe Hydroelectric Project where 7 day 12 hour shifts on the dynamite blasted heath were thought to be fun.

Following that he had design experience with the same company and with the celebrated firm of Ove Arup in its London Office from where he became a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a Chartered Engineer, aged 26.

He then made a career change, joining the Greater London Council to become a Transport Planner. The Council was so short of such people that it sent all successful applicants on a one-year MSc. course in Transport Planning.

He worked for the GLC for an additional 3 years and as a Lecturer in Transport Planning at Portsmouth Poly, now University, for a further 3 years before joining a small consultant, working on a variety of Transportation projects. That consultant had an office in Portugal and in Damascus a time when there were revolutions in both places and when work was otherwise scarce. That forced the firm to bankruptcy.

He preserved himself, and his household, by joining Northants County Council where he worked as the Project Manager Transport Planning for nearly 20 years having two sons and all that along the way.

He took early retirement in 1994 but has remained active in the field, preparing evidence for Public Inquires on local transport issues and appearing extensively at the Examination in Public of the County Structure Plan.

In 2000/01 he appeared as the Strategic Objector at the Public Inquiry into Railtrack's West Coast Main Line Modernisation Programme. Funding for that was from the same fund which now pays Transwatch.

The evidence prepared for that Inquiry forms a substantial archive underpinning much of the presentation on rail and road in this web site.