A councillor who has had more than 50 years of service to Reading under his belt is set to receive a unique honour.
Tony Page served as a councillor for Reading for 51 years, and had a ‘victory lap’ as Mayor when he retired in May 2024.
His time as Mayor saw him open Reading Green Park station, security measures at Tilehurst train station, Rivermead Leisure Centre and other municipal duties.
Now Mr Page is set to be made an honorary alderman in recognition of his service following a decision by councillors.
The title of alderman dates back to the Anglo-Saxon period, and recognises a person’s contribution to public life.
Councillor Anne Thompson (Liberal Democrats, Tilehurst) asked whether the honours could be done at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the council in May.
She said: “We do support the idea of conferring the title of Honorary Alderman upon former councillor Tony Page.
“But we would just like to suggest would this be possible to be done at the annual general meeting, when we are meeting in the Town Hall anyway in august surroundings, rather than convening a meeting with just one single purpose, which would be costly in terms of time.”
Cllr Thompson made the suggestion as the last round of aldermen were appointed during the AGM in 2022.
However, Mr Page is unable to attend this years AGM.
Liz Terry (Labour, Coley), the leader of the council, explained: “We have to have a special meeting to confer this honour, but it will be on the same date on the same evening at the council meeting in June.
“We’ve not been doing this very much recently, the last we did this and we conferred these honours was an exceptional time because the annual meeting of the council didn’t actually appoint a new mayor because there had been in the Covid time.
“So actually it was an opportunity to use that time and the budget to do that then coincidentally.
“Prior to the sad death of Tony Page’s husband Michael he had let me know he was going to be away anyway on the date of the annual meeting, and so this date was agreed prior to all this.
“It will be here, we’ll have some of his friends and family in the Mayor’s parlour for that.”
Councillors unanimously agreed to host the special meeting to confer the honour at the full council meeting on Tuesday, March 25.
Mr Page will be made an alderman at the full meeting on Tuesday, June 24.
The aldermen appointed in 2022 were former councillors Tony Jones, Jeanette Skeats and Joe Williams.
