An 'Exceptional' Officer
Last updated: 30/03/2007 - 15:49
A council officer whose 41-year career in Wandsworth Council took him from the shop floor to the ranks of top management retires.
Andy Clyro started working with the council in 1966 as a stone mason in the borough engineer's department. By 1988 he had risen to become head of the council's direct works team. Since 1992 he has been assistant director of technical services in charge of the operational services division.
In the 1980s the traditional blue collar operation was reorganised along commercial lines. It was one of the first in the country to compete actively for contracts both internally and externally.
Pictured (right): Andy Clyro - an 'Exceptional' Council Officer.
Operational Services Division
Today the operational services division is an £28 million business employing 375 staff and providing a range of building, highway maintenance and transport-related services. In addition to Wandsworth work it also holds contracts with other councils and housing associations. The division also represents the front line of the council's response to emergency incidents.
Andy Clyro was responsible for drawing up the borough's emergency plan and has headed operations at a series of major incidents including the gas blasts at Manor Fields (1984) and Hildreth Street (1987), the Clapham Junction rail crash (1988) as well as directing the massive clear-up after the Great Storm of 1987.
Last September, while working with a welder, he risked personal injury to cut free the crane that had fallen on a council block of flats in Thessaly Road in the Borough. It was only when the crane could be moved that it was safe for the emergency services to recover the body of one of the two men killed by the collapse.
'The Wandsworth Way'
Council leader Edward Lister said Andy Clyro had been an exceptional servant to the people of the borough: "I doubt very much whether anyone again will ever match the career Andy has enjoyed. It is a unique record of service in local government. With his ingenuity and resourcefulness he personifies the 'Wandsworth way' of doing things.
"All his working life he has been at the sharp end of the council's activities. He and his team can be called out at any time of the day or night. I know from my own first hand experience just how much the police, fire and ambulance services have come to rely on him.
"While other boroughs struggle with bloated, uncompetitive direct labour organisations he has built a commercially successful operation that consistently delivers excellent services for its clients. If anyone has earned the right to a long, if slightly less active retirement, it is Andy. He leaves with the best wishes of all councillors."