Death of Ruth Bagnall 'a huge loss to local government'

Ruth Bagnall, the chair of the Local Government Association's housing executive, died suddenly last Wednesday night.

Bagnall, who took up her post last August, was also a councillor in Cambridge.

She was 38 and had been diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2003.

LGA chair Sir Jeremy Beecham said: "Ruth's tragic and premature death is a huge loss, first to her family and friends, but secondly to the world of local government.

"She was one of the youngest and brightest of the leading members of the LGA.

"Housing was a policy area that had long engaged her interest and she undoubtedly would have made a significant contribution to the evolution of housing policy.

"Ruth will be very sorely missed by all her colleagues in local government and especially her Labour colleagues in Cambridge and the Local Government Association."

Bagnall had little time to make her mark on national housing policy, yet she spoke out on a variety of issues including boosting the number of councillors on the nine regional housing boards and the wider concerns of antisocial behaviour. Despite only being in the national housing spotlight for eight months, Bagnall had been a member of the Labour Housing Group since her election as a councillor for Cambridge's Coleridge ward in 1994.

She was secretary of the group from 2001 to 2003 and wrote extensively on housing in the English regions, as well as drafting the LHG submission on the government's regional governance white paper. In 2000, she was made leader of Cambridge council.

Ben Bradnack, deputy Labour leader at the council, said: "She will be remembered for almost everything she did – she was a star.

"She was particularly interested in housing and was pretty heroic in fighting for better homelessness provision for women in Cambridge."

Fluent in French and German and learning Polish, Bagnall was a languages graduate from Girton College, Cambridge, and a passionate advocate of the European Union.