Joy Blizzard re-elected as LARAC chair for one year

The move was confirmed this week following a meeting of LARACs executive on January 24.

The waste initiatives officer for Shropshire council, who has held the reins since January 2009 (see letsrecycle.com story), explained that it was slightly unusual for a chair to do more than four years but that it was becoming harder to get people to put themselves forward in the current climate.

She said: A while ago we could see it was becoming increasingly difficult to get people to stand experienced officers were becoming redundant, there are increased restrictions on travel and many people find themselves covering for staff who have left.

We changed the constitution to allow a chair to stand for an additional year in an emergency so we have been well prepared. As part of our actions for the coming year we will be looking at how to deal with the situation in the medium and long term.

Ms Blizzard said she was very fortunate that Shropshire council had agreed to continue her secondment one day a week to LARAC which allowed her to attend the necessary meetings.

Priorities

Discussing her priorities for the year ahead, Ms Blizzard explained that she would be working on delivering an annual action plan, based around LARACs development plan for 2013-15. The executivewillthen beheld to account for delivering this by members at its Annual General Meeting in October.

In addition to Ms Blizzards re-election, LARACs vice-chairs, Mark Foxall from Shropshire council and Gemma Clinton from the Dorset Waste Partnership, have also been re-appointed to their roles for another year.

Meanwhile,Liz Drew, recycling officer for Armagh city and district council and LARACs policy secondee for the devolved nations, has been co-opted onto the LARAC executive.

The executive is made up of six national representatives, 12 regional representatives and two co-optees.

Commenting on the importance of LARACs regional structure, Ms Blizzard said: One of the strengths of the organisation is that we get feedback from all areas of the UK. We have great people on the exec and the regional/devolved national reps ensure that we do not become too Anglocentric or even London-centric.

“To this end our reps get involved with organising events that are particularly relevant to their areas including Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.