About Tony
Tony Brophy
Environmental entrepreneur.
Landscape contractor.
Author.
Campaigner.
More than fifty years working with land, water, local government and environmental innovation.
THE TONY BROPHY TIMELINE
GARDEN SHED
A family landscape business.
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LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Brophy expanded into public-sector grounds maintenance.
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88 LOCAL AUTHORITIES
A national contracting platform.
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APPROXIMATELY 2,900 PEOPLE
Brophy grew into a major national employer.
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1986 THAMESGRO
Environmental joint venture with Thames Water Authority.
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1990 THAMES WATER
50 per cent acquisition of Brophy Plc.
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1994 FULL CONTROL
The commercial relationship changed.
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ENVIRONMENTAL WORK
Soils, water, carbon sequestration and nature-based solutions.
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LIQUID GOLD BLACK WATER
The account of what happened and what Tony believes England should learn from it.
Over his career Tony has worked with leading academics and practitioners in horticulture, landscape, soils, ecology, natural capital and environmental management.
Tony’s book, LIQUID GOLD BLACK WATER draws together that professional experience, the rise and fall of his family company’s relationship with Thames Water, the wider political history of England’s privatised water industry and the global contagion of neoliberalism.
It is Tony’s first major work of narrative non-fiction.
WHY TONY?
Tony did not study Thames Water from a distance.
He dealt with the organisation commercially before and after privatisation.
That gives the book it’s distinctive and unique perspective.
