Name Mark Wright Role Politician | Party Liberal Democrats | |
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Born 1974 Bristol Education University of Bristol (1997–2001) | ||
Mark wright gets a special anniversary gift from christine lorraine
Dr Mark Wright is a software engineer and elected councillor in Bristol. He has been councillor for Cabot ward since 2005, and was re-elected in 2009 and 2013. Between 2009 and 2011 he was Executive Councillor responsible for Housing, Service Improvement and IT on Bristol City Council in Bristol, England.
Contents
- Mark wright gets a special anniversary gift from christine lorraine
- Background
- Politics
- Open Standards advocacy
- References
Background
Mark Wright was born in Bristol in 1974, went to schools in Bristol and has a degree in chemistry from Bristol University. He also completed a PhD in astrophysics at Bristol University. This PhD on "interstellar hydroxyl masers" won the Royal Astronomical Society's prize for "Best PhD in the UK" in 2002
Politics
In his role on the council executive, Mark Wright was responsible for nearly 30,000 council houses in the city that house over 60,000 residents – one of the largest retained stocks of housing in the country – and was responsible for the spend of about £150m of public money per year. He has initiated the first council house building program in Bristol for nearly 30 years and launched a drive to get empty homes in the city back into use. Under his IT remit he also tightened the Council's rules on RIPA authorisations to limit council "snooping" on residents. He was also chairman of one of the City Council's planning committees from 2007–2009.
He was a member of the South West Provisional Council and sat on the "West of England Partnership" Planning and Housing Board, which oversees policy in the former Avon area. He was a Governor of St George's Primary School, which he helped to save from closure in 2008.
He has a record of opposing ID cards, supporting tidal power in the Severn Estuary and supporting civil liberties, and campaigning for reform of Parliamentary expenses. He has also campaigned against nuclear power and against light pollution. In 2006 he helped save a popular piece of graffiti by renowned local artist Banksy. An online petition Mark started collected over 3,500 signatures and was at that time the biggest e-Petition the council had ever received.
He was the Liberal Democrat candidate for Bristol South constituency at the 2010 General Election. In May 2011 he was considered a contender for the Bristol Lib Dem leadership.
Open Standards advocacy
Holding the responsibility for IT at Bristol City Council in 2009, Wright was a vocal proponent of Open Source, open document formats, and open data in UK local government. He speaks at IT conferences to highlight the problems still faced by public sector organisations wanting to avoid "vendor lock-in", particularly to Microsoft.