Wendy Broome’s contribution recognised as Stephen Whitehouse takes the reins at LARSOA

Around 50 members attended the LARSOA AGM, which was held on 25 March at the NUT offices in London. This included around a dozen representatives from London authorities, attending as LARSOA members for the first time.

The meeting approved the accounts for the previous year and the business plan for 2003/2004, which will be published shortly in the members’ section of this website.

Stephen Whitehouse (Sefton MBC) has been elected chairperson for the next 12 months, and Simon Ettinghausen (London Borough of Bexley) is the new vice chairperson. Rosemary Welch (Essex CC) and Brian Hogarth are to continue as treasurer and secretary respectively.

The press and public relations officer post remains vacant, and Adams Accountants have been appointed the Association’s accountants. After a wide-ranging discussion the recently amended constitution was adopted.

At the conclusion of business three presentations took place.
The first was to the retiring chairperson, Wendy Broome (pictured), who has served the Association as treasurer, secretary, vice chairperson and chairperson for well over a decade. In presenting her gifts of silver photo frames and a gladioli vase, the DfT’s David Padfield (pictured) paid tribute to her many years of service and placed on record his personal thanks for the invaluable help she has given him in his post in the Department. He also mentioned, in passing, that the DfT is delighted that one umbrella body has been formed for road safety officers from all local authorities.

The Linda Chalker Awards for outstanding contributions in the field of road safety were then presented. Jeanne Breen, who moved on recently from the post of executive director of the European Transport Safety Council received her award from Rob Gifford, and Neil Ellison presented an award to the Cleveland Motorcycle Training Scheme for 25 years of voluntary unpaid work in the training of motorcyclists.

During the afternoon members received three presentations. First, Bill Smith (Glasgow City Council) outlined research carried out into child cycling in Glasgow. Then, Andrew Clayton (RSN Associates) presented the findings of research into cyclist training conducted on behalf of LARSOA. Finally, Rob Gifford (PACTS) gave a resume of the current position in relation to various parliamentary initiatives with regard to road safety legislation.