Martin Horwood

Biography:

Martin Horwood was re-elected MP for Cheltenham in May 2010 with a majority of 4,920.

Martin Horwood was born in the old St.Paul’s maternity hospital in Cheltenham in 1962.

His parents lived first in St.Mark’s and then in Leckhampton, where his mother still lives today. Martin joined the Cheltenham Young Liberals while still at school there in 1979.

He went to Oxford University to read Modern History in 1981, and was elected President of the Oxford Student Liberal Society and then Chair of the party’s national student wing, the Union of Liberal Students.

After graduating and leaving student politics, Martin worked first in a London advertising agency and then in the voluntary sector. In 1990 he moved to Oxford to work for Oxfam and was elected as a local district and parish councillor there. Martin fought the 1992 general election in Oxford East while Nigel Jones won Cheltenham for the Lib Dems. During his stay at Oxfam, Martin’s teams raised tens of millions of pounds for the poor in developing countries, including £2.5m for victims of the Rwanda genocide.

Martin always kept in touch with family and friends in Cheltenham and joined groups like the Leckhampton Green Land Action Group (of which his father Don was later chairman) to support the campaign against over-development around the town.

In 1995 he married Dr Shona Arora who was then training in public health medicine. They moved to India for a year, Martin working for Oxfam and Shona for the UN programme on AIDS and a small charity working on sexual health in the slums of Delhi.

They returned to the UK, Martin becoming the first Director of Fundraising at the Alzheimer’s Society, the leading care and research charity for people with dementia and their carers. Martin led the team that won the charity Tesco Charity of the Year, earning £16,000 for the Cheltenham branch of the Society alone.

While living in London, Martin stood again for parliament in the Tory stronghold covering the City of London and Westminster.

Martin and Shona have a daughter Maya, and younger son Sam, – both born in Cheltenham General.

Constituency: Cheltenham

Constituency Address: Liberal Democrat constituency office
16 Hewlett Road
Cheltenham
Gloucestershire GL52 6AA

Constituency Tel: 01242 224 889

Date of Birth: 12-Oct-62

Email: martin@martinhorwood.net

Party: Liberal Democrats

Personal Website: http://www.martinhorwood.net/index.php

Twitter: @MartinChelt

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Martin-Horwood-for-Cheltenham/39332914673