Name Keith Whitmore | Role British Politician | |
Keith Arthur Whitmore (born 15 June 1955) is a British politician. He was President of the Congress of the Council of Europe from 2010 to 2012.
Contents
Whitmore was formerly a Liberal Democrat member of Manchester City Council, standing down in 2012.
Early life
Keith Whitmore was born in 1955 in Manchester, United Kingdom.
United Kingdom political career
Whitmore was first elected to Manchester City Council in May 1979 and remained a member until May 2012. From 1988 to 1997 he was leader of the Manchester Liberal Democrat Group of Councillors. He represented the Levenshulme ward.
From 1992 to 1998 he was a director of Manchester Airport, and for some years he was Deputy Chairman of the Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority (GMITA) and a Director of Greater Manchester Accessible Transport and the Manchester Museum of Transport. In 2009 he became Chairman of the GMITA and was the first Manchester councillor to hold that position. The Authority was merged into the Greater Manchester Combined Authority in 2011.
Council of Europe
Whitmore became a member of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe in 1996. He was elected President of the Congress on 26 October 2010. Other offices he had previously held included Chairman of the Institutional Committee of the Congress, Vice-President of the Congress, Chairman of the Congress's Sustainable Development Committee and Head of the UK delegation to the Congress.
Within the Council of Europe, Whitmore's party affiliation was with the Independent and Liberal Democrat Group (ILDG), of which he was chairman.
After politics
In 2013 Whitmore was reported to be an honorary alderman and chairman of the Heaton Park Tramway Trust. He remained in this position in 2015.
He has also been a director of the Manchester Tramway Company Ltd since 1990, of the Royal Exchange Theatre Company Ltd since 1995, of the People's History Museum (formerly the National Museum of Labour History, Manchester), since 2002, and of the Bahamas Locomotive Society Ltd of Wakefield since 2012.