Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council

Leckonby, Colin

Who Am I
I worked as an Instrument Engineer for many years on Instrument design and installation in the UK and abroad. This included working on Chemical Plants, Oil Refineries and many other areas requiring new or upgrading automatic plant controls.

After living in New Zealand in the 1960's where our daughter was born my wife and myself have had the travel bug and enjoy visiting foreign countries. With working abroad and foreign holidays I have now visited 64 countries and travelled around the world 4 times.

During my working life I studied with the Open University and gained a BA degree in Mathematics, Instrumentation and Control Engineering.

My wife was a Stockton Borough Councillor for 8 years, but now finds she is too busy working with the PCT on health matters. We have 2 children and 2 grandchildren to keep us busy.

Since retiring I have found more time for my hobby of competitive cycle racing and organisation. Being the President of Stockton Wheelers Cycling Club keeps me at the centre of the cycling world. I particularly enjoy working with children and young people and to further this Stockton Wheelers now run the British Cycling "go-Ride Scheme". We train young cyclists from as young as 4 years to be able to ride without stabilizers and in bike handling. The older group up to 16 years are trained in bike handling and safe riding on the open roads. This gives them all a good grounding to take part in League 2000 which is held on the go-kart track in South Bank. We have lost the use of the Clairville Stadium in Middlesbrough, but can still use the motor racing track at Croft.

Since reaching the age of 75 I now race in 'H' group of the League of Racing Cyclists and have won several races over the last few years in this group. The LVRC is for cyclists over the age of 40 and we regularly have over 80 cyclists racing. In 2007 I competed in the National Track Championships and won a 3rd place in the 500 metres sprint for the over 70's group.

As secretary and treasurer of the Low Grange Community Centre in Billingham it gives me great pleasure to help to run a successful centre for the local residents.

I worship at St. Luke's church in Billingham and am also a leader with the Church Lad's and Girls Brigade again working with children and young people. We have regular weekly meetings as well as taking the young ones away for weekends and the older ones to annual camp in the lake district.

Council Work
I was re-elected as a Billingham Independent Councillor with another colleague for the Billingham North ward of Stockton Borough Council in 2011. We found that we were unable to work with the other Stockton Liberal Democrat Councillors and therefore resigned in July 2007 and joined the Billingham Independents Association. We feel that this has given us more freedom to work for the re-generation of Billingham Town Centre, refurbishment of the Forum Sports Centre and development of John Whitehead Park. We work very closely with the Independent Councillors for Thornaby and Ingleby Barwick. Since we joined the BIA we have to cover more Stockton Council committee's but find this very varied and rewarding. We have regular meetings with the heads of the main council departments which keeps us up to date on progress within the council.

In the year April 2010 to May 2011 I was elected as the Civic Mayor of Stockton-on-Tees and found it very interesting and rewarding.  Both Marjorie and I enjoy meeting and talking to people from local and worldwide areas.  We made friends with the rest of the Chain Gang
(Mayors) as we were known, from County Durham and North Yorkshire.  It was a very busy time with granting the Freedom of Stockton to the Yorkshire Regiment and 2 Rifles Regiment.  This was at a time when they had just returned from Afghanistan.  In my period of office Marjorie and I attended 370 engagements in the 14 months, which meant we had to put holidays on hold, but it was well worth it.


Ward Work.
Myself and Lynne Apedaile share the ward work between us, as we
represent residents of the Billingham North Ward, no matter who they
are.  We regularly deliver our regular "Billingham North Ward
Newsletter" across the ward to keep the residents up to date with
Stockton Council and local matters.  Together we hold regular ward
surgeries to allow residents to come and talk to us in confidence about
their problems or worries.  We try to attend local residents group
meetings, as we have a regular invitation and they keep us in touch
with what is going on in the ward.

Councillors will represent you regardless of political persuasion. This site has been provided to the Councillor by the Local Authority. It has been provided subject to an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) that this Councillor has agreed to. If you think that this site is not being used according to the AUP, please inform the Local Authority.

Web Links

Stockton Council is not responsible for the content of external websites.

• Stockton Wheelers