Janet Looker


Janet Looker is a British Labour politician and solicitor serving as the Lord Mayor of York since 22 May 2019, previously holding the position from 2004 until 2005. She is a councillor representing the Guildhall Ward since 1985 as a member of North Yorkshire County Council and as a member of the new City of York Council since 1996 when York became a unitary authority. Looker was one of the founding members of the City of York Council and the longest serving councillor in York. She became a Cabinet Member for Education and Young People in 2011, when the Labour Party took control of the council prior to the 2011 local election. She served as the Leader of York Labour Group, the largest opposition group on the City of York Council 2015 local election from 2015 until 2019 when she stepped down as group leader to serve as Lord Mayor of York for the second time.

Personal life and work

Looker was born in March 1938 and raised in Weston-super-Mare. She studied law at the University of Bristol then moved to live in York in 1969. She has four grandchildren.
She worked as a solicitor in private practice in York, retiring in 2003. Looker was a long-standing governor of then St John College, where she was then offered the post of Clerk to the Governors. During this time she supported the successful bid for St. John's College to convert to a university. She later retired from that role in 2015.