The outgoing mayor of Reading says his final year as a councillor has been ‘a lap of honour’.
Councillor Tony Page (Labour, Abbey)’s term of office will end on Wednesday, May 22, at the annual council meeting.
First elected in 1973, he will be stepping down from council life as a new generation of councillors set to take the reins.
In an interview with the Local Democracy Reporting Service, he revealed why he has not been mayor earlier in his career.
Cllr Page said: “Being mayor would have meant relinquishing my portfolio at the time, and I didn’t particularly want to.
“Some see being mayor as an ongoing undertaking, I always see it as a rounding off my career in local government and that’s how it’s panned over this last year.
“It’s been very enjoyable, there hasn’t been an event that I’ve been at that I haven’t known somebody – I suppose having been around for so many decades that is inevitable and also very enjoyable.
“It’s been a lap of honour, and I’ve had a huge number of organisations that have wanted to engage and it’s been very satisfying to visit a lot of organisations and undertake commitments in projects that I’ve had a long term involvement with.
“For example, for ReadiBus I unveiled their new livery. Forty years ago I was responsible for having proposed the resolution that set ReadiBus up.
“Over that period, I have been involved with them and seen them go from strength to strength, involvement with Reading Buses and then all the other transport initiatives, and all the other voluntary organisations that I’ve had dealings with as well.
“That’s the reason I have not been mayor before, because it would have meant disengaging from the very much hands-on responsibilities that I had as a lead councillor, and I candidly didn’t want to do that at that stage.
“As the end of one’s period on the council I think is quite appropriate.”
Through the years, Cllr Page has seen many changes in the town.
One of those is the Green Park development, which he recalls going to 25 years ago when the area was what he called ‘all fields and floods’.
His first official engagement was the opening of Green Park Station in May 2023.
Cllr Page said: “We had hoped to have gotten that open about 10 years earlier, but it was not to be and of course, covid delayed things as well.
“But seeing the transformation of an area like Green Park has been hugely satisfying because it has actually turned out better than some of us thought, having been involved in planning developments on a whole host of sites, you get pitches from developers and sometimes you think ‘oh there’s a lot of bullshit in that.
“But Green Park has come in better than many of us thought would be possible.”
Cllr Page’s Abbey ward successor is David Stevens, a previous Conservative councillor who switched to Labour, and was elected on May 3.
The new mayor for the 2024-25 municipal year will be Cllr Glenn Dennis (Labour, Kentwood).
