Tributes paid to former Mayor of Derry

Tributes are being paid to a former Mayor of Derry who has passed away.

Len Green passed away on Sunday at the age of 86.

He served as a sailor before falling in love with a local woman and moving to the city from England.

Mr Green served as Mayor of Derry in 1984 after join the SDLP at it's inception. 

Party leader Colum Eastwood said he was a "dedicated public representative in the most difficult of times".

Very sad to hear about Len Green's passing. A dedicated public representative in the most difficult of times. RIP.

— Colum Eastwood (@columeastwood) January 15, 2017

Foyle MP Mark Durkan said his “keen sense of justice made him a civil rights activist". 

“Len Green had a very determined analysis and was unshakeable in his pursuit of an issue. His wry outlook and apparently detached manner, combined with a sharpness of judgement and a keenness for argument made him a stalwart city father", he said.

“As an Englishman representing Derry, he had special and colourful disdain for English direct rule Ministers.

“Len was part of an SDLP group of councillors that offered and upheld the principle of Power-Sharing throughout Derry’s darkest days and when the other parties were all rejecting the concept.

“Along with Pat Devine, Willie O’Connell and others, he determined that the City Council would take ownership of the old Foyle College on Lawrence Hill and the Aberfoyle Estate so that they would be retained for University development. This was at a time when the University did not want these properties which would otherwise have been sold for alternative use.

"With his typical determination and foresight, he and colleagues tested the official caution which was being counselled by invoking the city councils right to buy land for amenity purposes, as a cover for holding those key lands in trust for the necessary expansion of the Magee campus.

"In this and in lobbying for so many of the City’s strategic advances, Len Green was a practical, canny and dogged progressive."