Keith Wakefield death: the orphanage boy who slept rough and rose to become Leeds City Council leader
Keith Wakefield, who was twice leader of Leeds City Council and helped bring the Tour de France to Yorkshire, has died at the age of 78.
Leeds Council leader Coun James Lewis and chief executive Ed Whiting announced the sad news in a statement, saying that Mr Wakefield had passed away at St Gemma’s Hospice on Saturday “after a short illness”.
The pair said: “Keith was a councillor for Barwick and Kippax ward from 1988 to 2004 and then Kippax and Methley ward from 2004 to 2019 and was Leader of Leeds City Council 2003 to 2004 and 2010 to 2015.
“Across decades of public service, Keith made an enormous contribution to Leeds and was a passionate advocate for the city and its communities.
“Many people across Leeds and beyond will remember him not only for his leadership and commitment to public service, but also for his kindness, generosity and sense of humour.
“We know that this news will be felt by many colleagues and partners who had the privilege of working with Keith.
“Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones at this sad time.”
In his second stint as leader, Mr Wakefield took charge of the council as the Coalition Government made huge cuts to local authority budgets as part of its austerity programme.
It was one of the most difficult periods in the council’s history, having to cope with huge reductions in funding leading to large numbers of jobs being lost.
Mr Wakefield was a key architect of efforts to get West Yorkshire councils to work more closely together and has played a pivotal role in negotiations with the Government to devolve powers and funding from Whitehall to the region.
Along with then-council chief executive Tom Riordan, he was central in persuading councils in Yorkshire to back the hosting of the start of the Tour de France in 2014.
Prior to moving to Kippax and becoming a councillor, Mr Wakefield had a tumultuous start to his life.
He was barely a toddler when he was taken into care in a Birmingham orphanage – his single mother, Aileen Mable, was unable to cope after separating from his father.
The future leader of Leeds City Council was eventually fostered at the age of seven and moved with his new parents to Leicester, but in time he became deeply alienated from the couple after years of neglect at their hands.
In a frank interview with The Yorkshire Post just over a decade ago, Mr Wakefield described himself as “a bit of a bad lad, who could have gone either way”.
Amid smoking, drinking and playing truant, he left his secondary modern at 14 without any qualifications and fled the unhappy nest shortly after that.
A job stacking shelves and cleaning loos in a Co-op store followed, the start of 11 years as a working man which saw him do everything from engineering to collecting pennies in public toilets.
During his teens there were moments of adventure, including the day he and a mate travelled to Southampton and tried to stow away on the QE2.
“We were quickly discovered and promptly booted off,” he recalled in the same interview.
During a spell when he was out of work and unable to pay his rent he was forced to spend weeks sleeping rough in a train station. But he was determined not to return to his foster family.
He was never reunited with his biological parents and it was only when he was in his 50s that he discovered he had an older sister and brother, the latter died before they could meet.
“My childhood toughened me up and prepared me for difficult times ahead,” he said.
He became interested in politics when he was working at a factory in Leicester, saying: “There was the realisation that it just wasn’t fair. People could sack you on a whim, or change your shifts in an instant and there was no holiday pay for the first year.”
Mr Wakefield had a daughter Dawn in his 20s, and then after heading to Leeds in his 30s he married twice.
His first marriage, to Ruth, produced another daughter, Jessica, and a son, Michael.
He was elected to the city council in 1988 and said his proudest achievements were the setting up the one-stop shops (the local initiative providing benefits and services under one roof) and helping to secure 2014’s Yorkshire leg of the Tour de France.