HAVERHILL-BASED Thurlow Countryside Management, a firm which tackles invasive weeds, has taken on three new senior staff.Mark Prout becomes south west business manager at the firm, after working as projects manager for the West Country Rivers Trust, an environmental charity in the southwest.

HAVERHILL-BASED Thurlow Countryside Management, a firm which tackles invasive weeds, has taken on three new senior staff.

Mark Prout becomes south west business manager at the firm, after working as projects manager for the West Country Rivers Trust, an environmental charity in the southwest. Mr Prout has gained extensive knowledge of invasive weeds through a three-year survey on a river catchment area in Cornwall.

Sarah Wakefield, who becomes south east business manager graduated from the University of Gloucestershire with a degree in physical geography and environmental science, and has worked within the contaminated land department of the Scott Wilson office in Kent.

While there, her primary role was carrying out habitat and river corridor surveys, co-ordinating extended specialist protected species survey work and liaising closely with clients and local authorities throughout the implementation of mitigation works.

She has now set up tcm's Kent office, based at Whitstable, which serves the southeast of England and the Thames Gateway.

Richard Freeman, a chartered accountant who qualified with KPMG in London, becomes the firm's financial director.

He worked for Conoco Phillips as a financial analyst before joining Ionica, where he worked on corporate finance before moving to the operational reporting side of the business.

More recently, he worked at software company Searchspace as financial director.