‘I thought King’s honour letter was a scam’

A MAN who worked to promote accessibility to the outdoors was awarded a British Empire Medal in the King’s New Years Honours List.

Thomas Bindoff, 82, from Watlington, was the founder and chief executive of Centrewire, where he designed gates to give access to rights of way.

Later, he established a national training centre at the Aston Rowant Nature Reserve, where he was a volunteer, which focused on outdoor accessibility.

Mr Bindoff said he was “absolutely amazed” when he received his letter from the Cabinet Office. “I thought it must be a scam,” he said. “I’ve got the letter sitting on my mantelpiece now.

“I’m delighted and the reason I’m delighted is that designing the gates was one part of my life but, since 2006, I’ve been a volunteer at Aston Rowant Nature Reserve.

“As a result, I’ve been able to establish a national centre for training for all of the structures for access to the countryside and we’ve done lots of training. I’ve done all of that as a volunteer with Natural England.”

The COAT centre, which was established in 2018, is an acronym for Centre for Outdoor Accessibility Training.

It provides training for local authorities and government bodies throughout the country who manage or advise on public access to the outdoors. It offers classroom lessons on legislation principles and standards, as well as practical outdoor training in a field of gates using all-terrain mobility equipment. Mr Bindoff said: “It’s very well-known that access to the countryside is absolutely vital and is so good for health and wellbeing.

“During the period that I’ve been doing that — for more than 30 years — the evidence of that has got stronger and stronger.”

Mr Bindoff, who grew up in South London, lives with his wife Gill and has three grown-up children.

He has been a keen walker since he was a child and was taken on countryside walks in Surrey

In 1990 he established Centrewire, an idea which came from wanting to create a solution for navigating outdoor rights of way which was more accessible than stiles.

He said: “I had been a very keen walker and climber all my life and I realised that stiles, which were easy for me, were very difficult for quite a lot of people.

“It’s a very obvious thing but it took me a little while to work out they were a really big barrier in people accessing the countryside. Loads of people can’t manage stiles.”

The business supplied specialist gates to local authorities all over the country as well as public bodies such as the Forestry Commission, the Wildlife Trusts and Natural England. It also trained officers from authorities in outdoor accessibility structures. His first gate was designed within a year and was installed on the Watlington Ridgeway, which is part of the National Trail.

Mr Bindoff developed and researched the gate designs while running his previous enterprise manufacturing and supplying wire. He was completely self-taught and developed designs from observing people using rights of way. He ran the business out of a barn next to his former farmhouse in Lewknor.

Mr Bindoff sold the business to its manufacturer IAE in 2006, which is based in Stoke-on-Trent. He was also a technical advisor to a British Standards Institution committee on structures in the countryside three times, starting in 1996.

Meanwhile, Anna Horwood, Emeritus Professor of Orthoptics, who specialises in children’s vision at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, was made an MBE.

Ms Horwood, who has been with the trust for 44 years, was awarded in recognition of her services to orthoptics and research in visual development.