Sarah Nichols has been appointed as Chair of the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site (WHS) Executive Board.
Image: Sarah Nichols joins the WHS partnership with a wealth of local knowledge.
Sarah has lived in the Kennet valley for 25 years and joins the WHS partnership with a wealth of local knowledge having previously participated in the partnership as a Parish Council Chair. Sarah also has a wide breadth of business skills, with significant experience in strategic planning and relationship building through her 35-year professional career in the defence and aerospace industry. She was responsible for Business Development as a Director and an Executive Board member for 15 years.
Sarah has recently completed her tenure as Independent Chair of the North Wessex Downs National Landscape’s (NWDNL) governing body, the Council of Partners, where she introduced new strategic objectives and a revised governance structure. The NWDNL has now been selected as the pioneer
organisation in the UK to be considered for accreditation under the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Green List standard for protected areas, seen as the gold standard for managing protected landscapes worldwide.
Sarah reflects on her appointment “I am hugely excited to be supporting this internationally recognised World Heritage Site as it moves forward with a new governance arrangement. I hope that my experience, knowledge and skills can add value as we move forward together in this transition period, and I look forward to working with the WHS’s local and national partners over the coming years.”
This Executive Board appointment marks the start of a new governance structure for the WHS partnership, developed as part of a project supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. The Executive Board is the partnership decision-making body for the implementation of the WHS
Management Plan. The Board is informed and advised by an Expert & Stakeholder Group of local and national organisations and representatives.
Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites WHS was inscribed by UNESCO in 1986 for its unique and dense concentration of outstanding prehistoric monuments and sites which together form a landscape without parallel. The WHS partnership works to protect, conserve and share the WHS through individual and collective action as described in the WHS Management Plan.