Councillor John Whittle elected as new chairman of East Riding of Yorkshire Council

Councillor John Whittle has been elected as the new chairman of East Riding of Yorkshire Council following the authority’s annual general meeting.

Councillor Whittle, who has served as vice chairman for the last year, has been an independent councillor for North Holderness since his election to East Riding of Yorkshire Council in 2007.

Since his election, Councillor Whittle has been a member of strategic planning committee for the last 15 years and also sits on the children and young people overview and scrutiny committee.

Before his election to East Riding of Yorkshire Council, Councillor Whittle had been a member of Holderness Borough Council and has sat on Hornsea Town Council since the early 1980s and has served as their mayor on seven occasions, including in 1987 when, at the age of 31, he was their youngest elected mayor at that time.

Councillor Whittle was born in Middlesbrough but had family links to Hornsea and it was while he was a student at Bishop Grosseteste College in Lincoln that he would spend his holidays working at the famous Hornsea Pottery where among the jobs he undertook was driving the miniature bus before moving into a full-time sales role.

After taking care of his father’s small printing business, Councillor Whittle moved into the hospitality industry and along with his wife, Jane, owned the Swiss Cottage restaurant in Hornsea for a number of years before leaving the venue to focus on his role as a ward councillor.

Looking ahead to his year in office, Councillor Whittle said: “It is a great honour to be elected as the chairman of East Riding of Yorkshire Council and I’m very much looking forward to the year ahead.

“While we’re all learning to live with the COVID pandemic we still need to focus on bringing tourism back to the East Riding and help boost the economy and I’m looking forward to genuinely being able to help the people that I’ll be meeting over the next year.”

Councillor Whittle has three step-daughters, six grandchildren as well as a number of great- grandchildren and is also a well-known figure in Hornsea’s amateur dramatic and operatic scene.

The charities Councillor Whittle will be supporting during his year in office will be Hornsea Lions.

Councillor Pauline Greenwood, Conservative ward member for Beverley Rural, has been elected as vice chairman of the council and will serve in this role until May 2023.