He attended Crumpsall Lane Infant and Junior Schools, Abraham Moss High School and was a member of the 42nd Manchester Boys Brigade based at St Matthew with St Mary’s Church which he attended from the age of 5 to 19.
After leaving school at the age of 16, he worked in various retail roles before joining the Royal Air Force as a Firefighter at the age of 19. After undertaking basic recruit training at RAF Swinderby, he was based at Manston to learn his trade, followed by postings in Chivenor, Belize, Henlow, Ascension Island and Honnington.
During his time in the RAF, Carl was awarded the Good Show Award for Bravery, The Royal Humane Society Bronze Award for rescuing a pilot from a burning Hawk Aircraft. He also received a mention in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 1996 with a Commander in Chief’s Commendation. Carl was dismissed from the RAF in 1997 as it was deemed that his sexuality was not “compatible with service life”. He then moved to Hulme and worked for ASDA before joining the Greater Manchester Fire Service based at Moss Side on White Watch in 1998.
Carl left the Fire Service after 18 months to set up a promotions company with his business partner and they won the contract to launch Metro in Manchester. In 2010, they then went on to set up a company specialising in cleaning the City’s apartment blocks.
In 2001, Carl was crowned Mr Gay UK after heats were carried out in many towns and cities.
After moving in to the City Centre, Carl became involved in politics because he wanted to make a difference. He then moved to Burnage and was elected to the City Council as Labour Member for Burnage Ward in May 2011. Carl is very active in the community and is proud to represent the residents of Burnage. Since joining the Council, he has been Lead Member for Cycling and Lead Member for Gay Men. He has also sat on the Neighbourhood Scrutiny Committee and been a member of the Licensing Panel.
From the age of 16, Carl has taken on many voluntary roles including involvement with Northern Air Hospital Radio and Gaydio, an LGBT Radio Station. In 2004 and 2006, as part of a small team, Carl took part in two charity treks consisting of cycling, hiking and kayaking in Malawi raising over £100,000 for Action Aid for children suffering with HIV. In 2013, Carl and his business partner carried out a trek to Everest Base Camp which has an altitude of 18,000ft. Between them, they raised £25,000 for the Alzheimer’s Society, an organisation which Carl regularly supports with charity collections. He will be running in the UK Fast We Love MCR 10K as Lord Mayor.
Last August, Carl married Simon after more than 11 years together. They live happily in Burnage with their two maltipoo dogs, Scrappy and Oleg, and are currently going through the adoption process to further extend their family.
Carl is passionate about promoting the achievements and contributions that the City's LGBT population bring to Manchester and sees his year of office as an opportunity to make a difference to the lives of many LGBT people by raising public awareness of the issues that all too frequently affect them. Carl believes that people's different identities and sexual orientations should not just be respected in Manchester but should be celebrated. He looks forward to being a proud and vocal figure to promote LGBT inclusion throughout his term.
As one of the youngest Lord Mayors, Carl wants to engage and connect with all community groups and organisations across our amazing, beautiful city highlighting how brilliant our communities are.
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.7 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the cities of Manchester and Salford. Greater Manchester was created on 1 April 1974 as a result of the Local Government Act 1972; and designated a City Region on 1 April 2011.
Greater Manchester spans 493 square miles (1,277 km2), which roughly covers the territory of the Greater Manchester Built-up Area, the second most populous urban area in the UK. It is landlocked and borders Cheshire (to the south-west and south), Derbyshire (to the south-east), West Yorkshire (to the north-east), Lancashire (to the north) and Merseyside (to the west). There is a mix of high-density urban areas, suburbs, semi-rural and rural locations in Greater Manchester, but land use is mostly urban — the product of concentric urbanisation and industrialisation which occurred mostly during the 19th century when the region flourished as the global centre of the cotton industry. It has a focused central business district, formed by Manchester city centre and the adjoining parts of Salford and Trafford, but Greater Manchester is also a polycentric county with ten metropolitan districts, each of which has at least one major town centre and outlying suburbs.
For the 12 years following 1974 the county had a two-tier system of local government; district councils shared power with the Greater Manchester County Council. The county council was abolished in 1986, and so its districts (the metropolitan boroughs) effectively became unitary authority areas. However, the metropolitan county has continued to exist in law and as a geographic frame of reference, and as a ceremonial county, has a Lord Lieutenant and a High Sheriff. Being within the Lancashire county palatine they are appointed by the monarch in their capacity as Duke of Lancaster. Several county-wide services were co-ordinated through the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities until April 2011, when the Greater Manchester Combined Authority was established as the strategic county-wide authority for Greater Manchester, taking on functions and responsibilities for economic development, regeneration and transport. A further devolution of powers to Greater Manchester is set to take place upon the election of the inaugural Mayor of Greater Manchester scheduled for 2017.
Before the creation of the metropolitan county, the name SELNEC was used for the area, taken from the initials of "South East Lancashire North East Cheshire". Greater Manchester is an amalgamation of 70 former local government districts from the former administrative counties of Lancashire, Cheshire, the West Riding of Yorkshire and eight independent county boroughs. Since deindustrialisation in the mid-20th century, Greater Manchester has emerged as an exporter of media and digital content, guitar and dance music, and association football.
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