Dr Clive Morton has been involved in issues relating to community development throughout
his working life.
Although his early training and career were as a civil engineer – and his PhD focused
on managing large construction sites – he is no stranger to public service. He has
been chairman of Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and its
predecessors for more than ten years. He led the hospital trust as it became one
of the country's first foundation hospitals and is currently driving forward a £300
million private finance initiative development.
He has also been founder chairman of the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training
Board and vice president of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Clive’s interest in the relationship between society and infrastructure began when
he was an engineer working on the Barbican development in the 1960s – a major project
which aimed to repopulate an area of central London.
In the 1980s he took up a post as managing director for a Japanese company that
was establishing a manufacturing plant in a deprived area of the North East of England.
He joined the board of regeneration agency the Northern Development Company and
launched an initiative to raise standards in the engineering supply chain to allow
UK firms to compete against foreign manufacturers.
When he moved to Peterborough in the 1990s Clive joined the board of the Greater
Peterborough Investment Agency (GPIA) – one of the predecessors of Opportunity Peterborough.
He says: “When the idea of an urban regeneration company for Peterborough was first
being suggested at GPIA meetings, I was keen to ensure it would not just be a property
development organisation working in the city centre. I argued that it should be
a body that would deliver a much wider range of benefits for the whole of the city.
“I am pleased that this is precisely the remit which Opportunity Peterborough has
been given and now, I suppose, the onus is at least partly on me to make it work.”
He has had four books published – his first, Becoming World Class, won the Management
Consultancies Association prize for best management book of the year.
One of his books lays out a philosophy that a community can only be truly successful
when it shares a common vision and provides mutually beneficial links between people
and organisations.
Clive says: “Peterborough has a clear vision of the future and we are forging the
links and relationships which will be needed to deliver it.”