Cammell Laird boss, Wallasey GP and Wirral community champions on New Year Honours list

Jan 4 2012 by Gary Stewart, Birkenhead News

LEADING businessmen, a dance pioneer and community champions were among the Wirralians recognised in the New Year’s Honours list.

John Syvret, the man who rescued Cammell Laird from oblivion and brought shipbuilding back to Birkenhead, was made a CBE for his services to the maritime industry.

Karen Gallagher, managing director of Merseyside Dance Initiative, Hoylake’s Jacqueline Hall and Dr Nick Owen, director of the Wallasey-based Aspire Trust, were among those awarded MBEs.

Dr James Kingsland, lead GP at St Hilary Brow Group Practice in Wallasey, and Peter Collinge, from Parkgate, were given OBEs.

Mr Syvret said he hoped the honour marked the efforts of his whole workforce.

He said: “It is a great honour to receive this CBE. I hope it will be seen as recognition for the efforts of the entire Cammell Laird team and our contractors. Together, we have achieved a lot in recent years. Our goal has always been to create jobs and income for Birkenhead, Wirral, Merseyside and beyond.”

Peter Collinge, 84, is the chairman of Andrew Collinge Hairdressing, which celebrates 70 years in the business in 2012.

He said it was a “great surprise and a great honour” to hear he was receiving the award.

He added: “It is very, very special.”

Karen Gallagher, from New Brighton, has led Merseyside Dance Initiative from a modest agency in 1994 to an internationally-respected dance organisation.

She was a runner-up in the Merseyside Woman Of The Year awards 2011.

The 49-year-old said: “I cannot quite believe it. I was really shocked to receive the letter – I thought it was a joke at first.

“Service to dance is what I do, so this is just like a massive piece of icing on top of a cake.”

Dr Nick Owen is also celebrating being appointed Honorary Fellow in the School of Education at the University of Tasmania.

He was the first head of Community Arts at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA) between 1994 and 2002.

He was director of the Aspire Education Action Zone (EAZ) in Wirral between 2002 and 2004 and, when public funding came to an end, he set about transforming it into the charity and social enterprise now known as the Aspire Trust.

Former Aston villa chairman Doug Ellis, who was born in Hooton and spent two years as a schoolboy footballer on Tranmere Rovers’s books, received a knighthood for services to charity.