Councillor to become Leeds' first black Lord Mayor

Chapel Allerton Labour Councillor, Coun Eileen Taylor, will become the 126th Lord Mayor of Leeds at the council's annual general meeting on May 23.

Coun Taylor said it was a proud moment and "huge honour", which showed the "great diversity our city has", as her impending appointment was announced at today's (Wednesday) full Leeds City Council.

Her dad came to England in the early 1960s as part of the Windrush generation and Coun Taylor then joined him in Leeds in the early 1970s when she was a teenager.

After studying at Park Lane College, she then began working for the NHS in the Learning Disability and Mental Health department from the age of 19 until 2012, when she retired early to concentrate on local politics.

Coun Taylor's work in the NHS inspired her to get involved in local politics, which led to her being first elected as a councillor to represent the Chapel Allerton ward in 2008.

She said “I feel extremely delighted and grateful for the huge honour of representing our fantastic city of Leeds by becoming the new Lord Mayor for 2019-2020.

"Being the first black Lord Mayor and a woman is a position which I am very proud of and really shows how great and diverse our city is.”