The Mayor

The Mayor of Ribble Valley for 2026/27 is Councillor Jan Alcock.

Jan Alcock was born and brought up in Ribble Valley and attended St Mary’s Primary School at Osbaldeston and Lark Hill House School in Preston.

After studying English at Leicester University, she undertook a PGCE at Moray House, Edinburgh, before teaching stints at Wakefield Girls’ High School, Westholme School in Blackburn, Oakhill School in Whalley and Clitheroe Grammar School.

While working in schools, Jan took up skiing and accompanied school groups to Austria, Italy, Bulgaria, France, Canada and the USA.

And for an astounding 40-plus years she has volunteered at Clitheroe’s Cancer Research shop, where she now counts some of the shop’s regular bargain-hunters as friends.

Jan joined Ribble Valley Borough Council as representative for Aighton, Bailey and Chaigley – now Hurst Green and Whitewell – over 25 years ago and is a former chairman of the council’s licensing committee.

She served as a magistrate in Blackburn and Hyndburn adult and youth courts for 20 years and was a member of the Lancashire Magistrates’ Courts Committee.

Jan is a trustee of the Ribble Rivers Trust and regularly joins volunteer groups to litter-pick and tidy vegetation, her best haul being a fridge-freezer and six-foot gas canister at the Primrose Lodge Nature Reserve in Clitheroe!

The mayor’s chosen charities are the Ribble Rivers Trust and Cancer Research UK, and her mayoress is her sister, Dr Alison Brown.

The Mayor's Duties

One of the mayor's main duties is to chair the meetings of the full council. The mayor also attends lots of functions in the borough and across Lancashire, including church services, annual dinners, official openings of offices or new buildings, theatre productions, carol concerts, school prize-giving ceremonies, coffee mornings, garden parties, 100th birthday visits, band concerts and photocalls.

Other Mayors

The Deputy Mayor of Ribble Valley is Councillor Lee Jameson.