On this page, you can read a little about some of the people who are part of Banbury Community Action Group and the different ways they are involved.
Jim Smith
Jim grew up in London and lived in China and the USA before moving to Banbury. He has been involved with Banbury Community Action Group since 2019.
An engineer by profession and a leadership coach, Jim works on environmental justice and community resilience projects, often bringing different groups together to find common ground. He is particularly interested in addressing shared challenges such as climate impacts and media disinformation, which contribute to growing polarisation in our communities.
He is active in a number of local groups and can often be found repairing broken items at Banbury Community Shed and the Repair Café, helping clear up the town with Banbury Litter Pickers, speaking at events with the Banbury Interfaith Network, volunteering with the Canal & River Trust as a lockkeeper and walk leader, and supporting patient voices within the NHS.
A keen gardener, Jim has run allotments in the past and now grows food in his own garden, as well as foraging locally. He is proud to call Banbury home and believes strongly in encouraging others to get involved and help make the town the best it can be. He puts this into practice through his active role as Chair of Banbury Community Action Group.
Naseem Hussain
Naseem has been active in Banbury’s community for over 20 years. Through her work with Sunrise Multicultural Project, she first connected with Banbury CAG via Bridge Street Community Garden, where she collaborated with Tila to run women’s groups. With Sunrise, she helped establish one of the garden’s early planters, which is still flourishing today.
With a beautiful garden of her own, Naseem understands the restorative power of being surrounded by nature.
She’s passionate about extending that experience to others, particularly those who might not otherwise have access to green spaces. She’s seen firsthand the difference it can make to mental wellbeing — not just for herself and her family, but for the wider community.
Naseem also values the community garden for its broader role. The sessions held there — from growing and composting to community cooking and cultural events — have become a vital source of connection and support for local people. As a member of the British-Asian community, she stresses the importance of creating inclusive spaces where people from all backgrounds can come together and integrate.
After many years of collaboration, Naseem formally joined Banbury CAG as Treasurer in 2024. Stepping into the role during a period of exciting growth, she’s embracing the challenge with a strong commitment to inclusion and community building.
Steve Kilsby
Steve Kilsby served as a Banbury Labour councillor, on and off, for 35 years before retiring in 2024. Throughout that time, he was driven by a strong sense of public service and a commitment to improving Banbury’s green spaces. One of his key achievements was identifying the potential of what is now Bridge Street Community Garden on former Borough Council depot land, persuading the Town Council to release the site for a peppercorn rent.
He played a similar role in the creation of Browning Road Community Orchard, another Banbury CAG project.
Steve became the informal leader of Banbury Litter Pickers in 2020. He jokingly describes himself as someone “who knows where the litter is”, directing group sessions to the town’s rubbish hotspots. He is inspired by the dedication of volunteers and the visible difference their work makes to Banbury’s streets, parks and waterways.
Before joining Banbury Litter Pickers, Steve had already set up two litter-picking groups; one through the Labour Party in 2014 and another with the Royal Voluntary Service in 2018. Later, he discovered Banbury Litter Pickers on Facebook and the groups joined forces, strengthening the town’s volunteer network.
Across decades of involvement, Steve has remained motivated by a belief in community action and collaboration. Although he can be frustrated when local authorities seem slow to engage with volunteer enthusiasm, he is clear that Banbury Litter Pickers are not replacing council responsibilities. Instead, he works to build constructive relationships with local government to support positive, practical change in Banbury.
Lynda Smith
Lynda grew up in a household that didn’t tolerate things being wasted. A carpenter’s daughter, she had a resourceful mindset from an early age and rarely threw away a zip, button, or piece of fabric except as a last resort. Over time, this developed into a passion for recycling and composting, as well as a love for cooking inventive recipes from scratch. She brought this passion to her role as a Master Composter for Oxfordshire County Council, where she worked for many years.
Lynda has been involved with Banbury CAG in a variety of ways since it formed in 2013. While she worked as Treasurer for four years, she now specialises in networking. Constantly on the lookout for people and organisations who could collaborate with Banbury CAG, she has a knack for connecting the right people and organisations with each other.
She spends a lot of time at Bridge Street Community Garden, advising on composting best practices and the growing of edible plants. During events, she can often be seen running a seed swap, distributing seeds of pollinator-friendly plants to make sure nothing goes to waste.
Paul Bonsor
Paul loved cycling in the countryside as a child, and since moving to Banbury he has continued to cycle regularly, both to get around and to explore the local area. Like many market towns, Banbury has grown significantly over recent decades, bringing a huge increase in traffic. Paul notes that traffic planners have often prioritised cars, vans, and lorries getting to their destinations as quickly as possible, sometimes at the expense of the wellbeing of cyclists, walkers, and people using wheelchairs or mobility aids.
When Paul discovered Banbury Active Travel Supporters (BATS), a group dedicated to redressing this imbalance, he realised his experience could be useful.
As a lifelong cyclist, he knows how intimidating, dangerous, and ultimately depressing fast traffic can be for everyone else. He believes that growing awareness of the benefits of moving physically—rather than being moved while sitting in a vehicle—must factor into the planning of all new infrastructure.
Paul advocates for a range of solutions: good public transport, joined-up cycle routes, pleasant pedestrian paths, secure cycle parking, public benches, and pedestrian-friendly crossings. He sees these as essential pieces of the puzzle to make Banbury a safer and more pleasant place to live.
Although Paul does have a car, he prefers not to use it whenever possible. He would like to see infrastructure designed so that people have the genuine option to leave their cars at home for local journeys. You can call it “active travel,” but Paul calls it common sense!
Tila Rodriguez-Past
Tila was born in southern Mexico, where she grew up spending lots of time in the forest. She later moved to the United States to study Fine Art, before moving to London to complete a Master’s degree in Sculpture and Video, exploring the relationship between culture and nature. Art and nature have always been important parts of her life, and she has now lived in Banbury for around ten years.
She has been involved in community tree planting with Banbury Trees, a grassroots project helping to grow trees from seed and plant wildlife-friendly species in schools and public spaces across the town.
Since 2021, she has also been part of Bridge Street Community Garden, where she works as Garden Officer, helping to organise gardening and nature-based creative workshops alongside local growers and creative practitioners.
Tila enjoys helping to maintain a welcoming green space where people can come together, connect with nature, and be creative. She is passionate about supporting both community and the natural world, and believes they need nurturing side by side.
Neil Wallis
Neil has lived in Banbury for over 25 years. Over the past decade he has been involved in a wide range of community activities, many of which (though by no means all) have been through Banbury CAG. Lately, he has been most involved in Banbury Active Travel Supporters (BATS), who have supported the publication of Local Walking and Cycling Infrastructure Plans (LCWIPs) for Banbury. These are an essential building block to improving access around town for cyclists and walkers. Through the 20’s Plenty campaign, BATS have also campaigned for the introduction of 20mph speed limits in Banbury, improving road safety for walkers and cyclists while reducing noise and generally making life better for residents.
Neil has also been involved in other community activities, such as helping to build the Bridge Street Community Garden shed and establishing a community orchard at Browning Road. Over the years, he’s also represented Banbury CAG at numerous events and activities around the town.
Neil believes in the maxim ‘think globally and act locally’: while it may feel impossible to impact the many global and national issues, we can make a real difference in our local community.
Chris Manley
Chris has lived in Banbury for nearly two decades and has been involved with Banbury Community Action Group since its first meeting. Over the years he has supported Bring and Take events and Banbury Active Travel Supporters, while engaging the local MP in the environmental and community work being done by local people. He is a keen cyclist, a volunteer for a local mentoring organisation, and is involved with the local Amnesty International group as well as other environmental organisations.
Chris says:
“I can be quite a grumpy person, and the international political and climate situation can challenge even the most determined optimist. I have various ideas about what to do — including sitting at home to come up with the Solution to All the World’s Problems, which should have been ready by last Tuesday but somehow still isn’t. In the end, it’s far more satisfying to link up with other people and do what you can, in the hope it will improve things just a bit. Banbury Community Action Group hasn’t changed the whole world (at least not yet), but ordinary people working together are making a difference — and it can be a real antidote to the grumpiness. Often, quite apart from anything else, it’s good fun.”