TRIBUTES have flooded in to a much-respected councillor and prominent member of the community who has died aged 67.

Eileen Burt had been a Prudhoe town councillor for 17 years until she stepped down last year, while she also served as a county councillor for the town between 2013 and 2017 and was a councillor on Tynedale District Council. 

Having lived in Prudhoe for around 35 years, until she recently returned to her hometown of Jarrow to be closer to her family, she was a prominent member of the Hexham Constituency Labour Party and was secretary of the Prudhoe and District Labour Branch until just a few years ago.

Fellow town councillor and Labour party member Coun. Jennifer McGee said: “She was just an ordinary woman, but she was extraordinary – she always look a step further than most people would do.

“All I can say is Eileen was a friend to many, a good soul with a kind heart and she would never turn anybody away.”

Coun. McGee also paid tribute to Mrs Burt on Sunday at the town’s Highfield Fest – an event which she was instrumental in starting up and contributing to every year.

She was a lifelong member of the Catholic church, and an active member at Our Lady and St Cuthbert Catholic Church in Prudhoe, and she also served more than 20 years as a magistrate at the old Tynedale Magistrates’ Court, having joined the bench in 1990.

She also played an important role in the town including a period as chairwoman of governors at Prudhoe Community High School, and as a trustee of Prudhoe Community Partnership, taking the role of deputy chairwoman from 2016 to 2018.

Chairman of trustees at the partnership, George Hepburn, said she was heavily involved in the funding and building of the Spetchells Centre and she led the project which saw new shops installed at 68 and 69 Front Street.

Mr Hepburn added: “It was a joy and a privilege to work with her and I admired how much she had contributed for the good of Prudhoe over 30 years.”

Eileen passed away peacefully on June 28 after a diagnosis with asbestos-related lung cancer.

Her funeral will be held at St Matthew’s Church on York Avenue, Jarrow, on Wednesday, July 10 at 9.30am before a committal at South Shields crematorium at 10.30am.