A long-serving custodian of Newcastle’s Town Moor and a former council leader are to be given the city’s highest honour.
Councillors have agreed to award the Freedom of Newcastle to Town Moor superintendent Kevin Batey and former Newcastle Lib Dem leader David Faulkner.
They will join the likes of Sir Bobby Robson, Sir Brendan Foster and current Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe in receiving the ceremonial honour.
At a full council meeting this week, politicians were told that Mr Batey had dedicated his entire 40-year career to protecting the beloved green space at the heart of Newcastle, having started as a 16-year-old in 1985 as a tractor and spadesman.
Described as passionate about the maintenance of the grasslands, hedgerows, plantations and tree avenues across the moors, he was promoted to Town Moor foreman in 1996 and then Town Moor superintendent in 2007 for the hereditary Freemen of Newcastle, who are responsible for looking after the moor.
Chair at Freemen of Newcastle upon Tyne
Image: LinkedIn
David Wilson, chair of the hereditary Freemen of Newcastle upon Tyne, said: “We are delighted that our Town Moor superintendent, Kevin Batey is to be awarded Honorary Freedom of our City. I cannot think of anyone more appropriate or deserving to receive this honour. Kevin has devoted himself to the preservation and maintenance of the green open spaces of Newcastle for the past 40 years. His specialist experience, skills and knowledge of management of our Town Moors, a unique rural environment in an urban setting, is unsurpassed.”
Mr Faulkner served as a Liberal Democrat councillor in Newcastle from 1973 to 1978 and then again from 2004 to 2018, succeeding John Shipley as leader of the council for the final eight months of the Lib Dems’ time in charge at the Civic Centre between 2004 and 2011.
He also acted as coordinator of the Newcastle’s of the World international friendship programme, an alliance of more than 100 towns and cities across the world who share the same name.
The former Fawdon councillor also penned a book about the history of the former Rowntree’s and Nestle confectionary plant that employed thousands of people in his ward, entitled Memories of the Fawdon Factory.
Habib Rahman, an independent councillor in the Elswick ward, said Mr Faulkner had shown “exceptional leadership” over a long career of public service.
Colin Ferguson, current leader of the council’s Lib Dem opposition, added: “In an age when public service is too little valued on its own merits and civic duty rarely recognised as it should be, David Faulkner’s contributions to Newcastle remind us that integrity, dedication and civic pride are powerful forces for change. He is not merely a servant of the city, he is the very embodiment of its spirit.”
