Teesside and County Durham people recognised in King's Birthday Honours
The list has been published
A number of people in Teesside and County Durham have been recognised in the King's Birthday Honours this year.
MBE/OBE List:
- Lynda Redshaw, 70, County Durham, for service to social housing in the North of England
● She has been the backbone of the Northern Housing Consortium (NHC) for 34 years, helping it grow from a team of three to a team of more than forty people that has influence nationally, and a multi-million pound procurement arm.
● She is a prolific charity fundraiser who has raised over £60,000. For over 15 years, she has organised an annual charity fundraising event which raises £3,000 - £4,000 per year.
● She has played a significant role in the development and launch of NHC’s Unlocking Success Bursary scheme. This scheme has supported 140 people living in social housing to kick-start or re-start their careers.
● She also helped the housing sector in the North go digital, for 15 years she organised the Hitex Summit, which connected NHC members and IT suppliers. Over 4,000 delegates attended which supported many housing providers to modernise their systems.
● She has made a significant impact in helping the organisation achieve its objective of helping housing providers create and regenerate sustainable homes and build resilient, thriving communities.
- Kylie Dixon, 44, County Durham, for services to social enterprise and female entrepreneurship
● She founded the Northern Lass Lounge in 2020 after she felt overwhelmed and anxious when managing her businesses social media.
● Today, the Northern Lass Lounge has expanded to become an inclusive online community.
● She has a podcast, where she interviews members and changemakers to inspire and invigorate those who are looking to start a business, or need help to run sustainable and successful enterprises.
● Alongside her second business, Mushroom Marvellous, a children’s book company, she delivers external workshops and talks to support the social enterprise eco-system.
● As part of the Social Enterprise Boost programme, she has passionately supported numerous social entrepreneurs through workshops focusing on how to use social media for good.
● She is an inspiration for female entrepreneurs in the North East and beyond and her commitment to improving the opportunities for those in the sector is undoubted.
● Having seen the successful growth of the Northern lass lounge, she now heads up the Lounge Generation, an organisation focussed on promoting entrepreneurship to young women who are not currently in education training or employment with a specific focus on supporting those with disabilities in the region.
- Carole Johnson, 53, County Durham, for services to policing
● She has been an intrinsic part of removing prolific and dangerous criminals from the streets and safeguarding vulnerable people, not only in County Durham and Darlington but across the country.
● In January 2023 she was part of the team working on Operation Coastal launched after the violent activities of a feud between Organised Crime Gangs (OCG) terrorised the community of Horden in County Durham.
● She used her expertise as Central Authorities Bureau (CAB) Manager, the ‘gatekeeper’ for covert tactic requests, to push the boundaries and seized opportunities to use new tactics to gather compelling evidence, which led to the successful prosecution of the offenders who received a combined prison sentence of 95 years.
● Recently she has implemented an innovative system to cancel forward facing authorities when the objective has been achieved - this has now been recognised as national best practice.
● As the longest serving CAB Manager in the UK she has shared her knowledge and experience, creating the Regional CAB working group, where she shares best practice and supports colleagues.
● She is also a member of the National CAB Working Group and National Targeted Equipment Interference Group and generous with her time, has supported other forces by providing them with support on surveillance compliance regulations.
- Christine Pascall, 70, Hartlepool, for services to golf
● A single figure handicap player for over 50 years, she first played for England girls in 1972 and then went on to represent the England women’s squad between 1979-81.
● She is a driving force for the development of the game, encouraging women, young people and families to fall in love with the game that has given her so much.
● She has spent 13 years as a member of the England women and girl’s selection committee and has captained no fewer than 15 different England teams in their quest for success at home and abroad.
● She is the fifth ever female England Golf President, and everyone is hugely proud of the way that she has fulfilled this role, bringing her passion for golf at all levels through in every step she has taken.
● Whether it’s organising family fun days at Hartlepool Golf Club to encourage children to give golf a try or knitting mascots in county colours to promote team morale, she actively providing more opportunities for more people from diverse backgrounds, ages, abilities and/or disabilities to experience and participate in golf than ever before.
● She has worked with local schools and the council to try to widen the appeal of golf locally and increase the diversity within the sport.
● Described as ‘a leading figure in North East Golf for more than 50 years’ by Northern Golfer Magazine, her passionate contribution to golf has raised the profile of the women’s game and inspired countless golfers over the years.
- Debra Waite, 63, Darlington, for services to health and housing
● Through her tireless work in public service for more than thirty years, she has made a real change in the way the Government has improved housing standards for some of the most vulnerable people in England.
● After leaving the army she helped change military policy so that serving women would no longer have to retire if they become pregnant.
● She worked in local councils across the country and always identified the right people to pull together to share her vision that regulation is about putting real people’s interests at the heart of what councils do.
● At the London Borough of Greenwich, she created an ‘offender pays’ model, setting up a team who targeted private landlords renting out dangerous homes to vulnerable people, allowing the good landlords to get on with providing decent homes.
● For three years, at MHCLG, she led a team that bridged the gap between real-life, on-the-ground experience, and public policy making.
● She then headed up investigations and intelligence, bringing her unique set of skills to the vital work the Building Safety Regulator is doing to make sure tall buildings are safe.
● Her positive and moral attitude, and steely determination, enabled her to communicate at all levels, whether this be to government ministers, civil servants, landlords or tenants.
BEM List:
- Eileen Judith Lees, 77, County Durham, for services to education and to community in County Durham
● She was born and raised in the North East of England and has always been deeply committed to her community.
● She dedicated her entire career to education.
● In addition to her substantive role at Red Rose Primary, she volunteered for a six-week visit abroad, aimed at sharing best practices in teaching reading and building cultural links between Ghanaian schools and the school, she travelled to the Upper East Region of Ghana to help deliver the programme’s goals.
● Over 19 years, she made 55 self-financed trips to Ghana.
Today, children in over 76 rural schools’ benefit from baseline data routinely collected, enabling better tracking of progress.
● Parents have been supported in learning to read, and Ghanaian teachers have visited the UK to observe reading instruction in primary schools.
● As a result, no child from the Let’s Read schools has been denied entry to secondary school due to an inability to read.
● AfriKids, a local Ghanaian charity in the area, has consistently supported her work with a local office in London enabling her work to be carried out in Ghana.
● When not in Ghana, she has volunteered extensively for her local church and community over 60 years.
● She served as the church organist for over 50 years and was instrumental in raising funds for the restoration of the church’s historically significant organ.
- Eric Hepplewhite, 78, Lanchester, for services to the community in Lanchester
● For the Lanchester community, he has around 50 years of commitment to the community. He has been supporting youngsters, fulfilling all that is required of a Youth Leader and a Boys Brigade Officer. This has included previously taking groups of boys abroad but now it is more local.
● He has also led guidance for Duke of Edinburgh Awards and the Presidents Badge in Brigades.
● He was very much involved with Croft View Halls in the 1970s - where the Youth were able to use the hall for activities. He organised activities where he was able to fundraise money to have some refreshments in the Hall.
● He organised small events for Remembrance Day, commemorating WW1. He made sure the youth were very much involved in these events - he had them make poppies, so they were able to be purchased around the village and in schools.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said:
“This year’s Birthday Honours List is a powerful reminder of the extraordinary dedication, compassion, and service that exists in every corner of our country.
"From community champions to cultural icons, each recipient reflects the very best of Britain. I extend my heartfelt congratulations and gratitude to them all.”
Anyone can nominate someone for an honour. If you know someone who has achieved fantastic things worthy of recognition, go to the Government's honours website to find out more about how you can put them forward.