Councillor Simon Bond, Mayor 2024-2025
Mr David Armitage, Mayor's Consort
Forty-five years ago Simon started working in Windsor and set up home in Maidenhead, following his early years in London and then studying economics at Leicester. He worked for financial services firm Towry from 1979 to 2009. In about the year 2000 it relocated from Windsor to Bracknell. After taking early retirement, he undertook a variety of voluntary roles with charities and community groups. This included being treasurer and a trustee of a not-for-profit care home for elderly residents.
With a background in economics and finance, he takes a particular interest in the contribution we can all make as individuals, together with organisations and the world of finance, to a just transition to net zero and to a more sustainable economy and environment. This has been supplemented by awareness of the importance of biodiversity, as one of the founder members of Wild Maidenhead.
Simon is proud to have represented the residents of the Belmont ward in Maidenhead as one of their councillors since 2019. This covers a diverse area from St Mark’s / Courthouse Road to St Luke’s / Cookham Road.
Forty-five years ago he discovered the Quakers. The practice of gathering in stillness met a need in him and being a Quaker has been an important part of his life ever since.
Simon is also proud of his continental maternal forebears reflected in his middle name Lehenner (originally von Lehenner), and his Scottish grandmother of the clan MacGillivray.
David was born in Yorkshire and brought up near Holmfirth (where the ‘Last of the summer Wine’ series is made). He studied food science in Leeds. Moving south in 1973, he started working as a food technician at the Rank Hovis McDougall Research Centre in High Wycombe, specialising in wheat, flour and bread. He remained with them until taking early retirement due to increasing visual impairment. In retirement, he has campaigned for clearer labelling, particularly on food products. It is important that everyone can read things like cooking instructions and sometimes it is the contrast as much as the size that makes this difficult for visually impaired people.
Simon was Deputy Mayor in 2023/24 and is very much looking forward to meeting more voluntary organisations during his mayoral year.