Mayor of Bolton

Cllr Lynda Byrne has been a councillor for 20 years and has represented

Breightmet for 12 years.

Prior to this she represented Bradshaw and Crompton wards.

During this time she has served on several committees including the Planning and Licensing committees. She has represented Bolton on the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Authority for 12 years, and has been a member of the Bolton Adoption Panel.

Cllr Byrne qualified as a nurse, took a sabbatical to serve as Mayoress alongside her husband John when he was Mayor of Bolton in 2010-11, and retired from nursing in 2012.

John will take on the role of Consort during Lynda’s year of office.

During her time as Mayor, Cllr Byrne will be raising funds for her chosen charities:

Bolton Hospice
Bolton branch of the YMCA
Bolton Carers Support
Crossroads
Cllr Byrne anticipates a busy year ahead with her Mayoral duties: “I am very proud to have been chosen to represent the people of Bolton, it’s a huge honour. I look forward to raising the profile of Bolton and meeting people from all walks of life.”

Putting forward the motion for Cllr Byrne to become Bolton’s 43rd Mayor, Astley Bridge councillor Hilary Fairclough told the story of how the 63-year-old grandmother of five grew up in a Bolton toy shop and met husband John when the pair were just teenagers.

She mentioned another historic first for Cllr Byrne — when she became the first female and first Labour councillor to be elected in the Tory heartland of Bradshaw in 1994.

Cllr Fairclough said: “So in Cllr Byrne we have a first class mother and wife and the first husband and wife mayoral team.

“We have the first woman councillor in Bradshaw and the first female mayor to succeed another.

She added: “So I feel sure that she is eminently qualified to be the new first citizen of Bolton.”

Cllr Byrne, who has appointed her husband John as her mayoral consort for the year and has chosen voluntary work as her theme, said: “I am so thrilled to my family and friends and council colleagues here to see me take my first steps as mayor.

“I have lived in Bolton all of my life and have the highest regard for all that the town has achieved.

“I am delighted that my husband John has agreed to be my consort for the year — we do a lot of voluntary work and that is why I have chosen that as my mayoral theme.

“It is the volunteers in Bolton who make this town such a good place to live and raise our children.”




Bolton

Bolton,is a town in Greater Manchester in North West England. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish weavers settled in the area in the 14th century, introducing a wool and cotton-weaving tradition. The urbanisation and development of the town largely coincided with the introduction of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. Bolton was a 19th-century boomtown, and at its zenith in 1929 its 216 cotton mills and 26 bleaching and dyeing works made it one of the largest and most productive centres of cotton spinning in the world. The British cotton industry declined sharply after the First World War, and by the 1980s cotton manufacture had virtually ceased in Bolton.

Close to the West Pennine Moors, Bolton is 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Manchester. It is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages that together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the administrative centre. The town of Bolton has a population of 139,403, whilst the wider metropolitan borough has a population of 262,400. Historically part of Lancashire, Bolton originated as a small settlement in the moorland known as Bolton le Moors. In the English Civil War, the town was a Parliamentarian outpost in a staunchly Royalist region, and as a result was stormed by 3,000 Royalist troops led by Prince Rupert of the Rhine in 1644. In what became known as the Bolton Massacre, 1,600 residents were killed and 700 were taken prisoner.

Football club Bolton Wanderers play home games at the Macron Stadium and the WBA World light-welterweight champion Amir Khan was born in the town. Cultural interests include the Octagon Theatre and the Bolton Museum and Art Gallery, as well as one of the earliest public libraries established after the Public Libraries Act 1850.