Barbara Janke to stand down as leader of Bristol City Council

From BBC News:

The leader of Bristol City Council has announced she is to step down. 

Barbara Janke said she would stand down as council leader and as leader of the Liberal Democrat group. 

Ms Janke announced her decision to the Lib Dem-controlled authority's cabinet earlier. She said she made the decision as she approached her 65th birthday. 

She said it had been an "enormous privilege" to serve as council leader in 2003-2004, 2005-2007 and from 2009 to the present. 

She will remain leader of the Lib Dem group until the group's annual meeting on 8 May, when a new leader will be chosen.

Barbara was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames from 1986 to 1994 and stood unsuccessfully as Lib Dem candidate for Surbiton at the 1992 general election. She then moved to Bristol and was elected to the council in 1995, taking over as Lib Dem group leader from Stephen Williams (now MP for Bristol West) in 1997.

In a comment piece on the same page Paul Barltop, the BBC's political editor for the West of England, says:

The fact that Bristol's no longer notorious for its high council tax and poor schools is a legacy she'll hope to be remembered by.