Liverpool appoints chair of race equality taskforce

Housing association director Tracey Gore has been seconded to chair a taskforce aimed at reducing racial inequality across the city.

Gore, who is director of Liverpool-based Steve Biko Housing Association, will take up the role for six months after Mayor of Liverpool Joe Anderson set up the taskforce last month.

The taskforce will comprise representatives from the city council and its partners and will seek their expertise and input from the people of Liverpool on what positive actions can be taken to reduce race inequality in the city, and then seek to implement to recommendations.

Gore’s first job as chair will be to work with Anderson on inviting representatives from across the city’s BAME communities to join the taskforce. The group will meet every six weeks until May 2021.

Anderson said:  “I know this will be challenging, but we must have these honest conversations with ourselves about how we can become a city that is able to support everyone who lives here to their fullest potential.”

Gore has worked in the city’s social housing sector since 1978 and was appointed as Riverside Housing Association’s first black housing manager at the age of 27.

After leaving Riverside, she worked at Liverpool City Council from 1998 until 2003, including in the regeneration directorate on projects including the previous Labour administration’s New Deal for Communities programme.

In 2003, Gore joined Steve Biko Housing Association, one of two black and racial minority housing associations in Merseyside, according to the city council.

She is also a board member of Granby Community Land Trust, a member of the the charity CitySafe Partnership, she chairs Liverpool’s Strategic Hate Crime Group, and is an advisory member to both Liverpool City Council’s Employment and Skills Select Committee and Liverpool City Region’s Fairness and Social Justice Board.

She is a founding board member of Merseyside’s Amadudu Women’s Refuge and was chair of the Kuumba Imani Millennium Centre, a multicultural facility on Princes Road, Liverpool. She is currently campaigning to rid Toxteth of guns and knives.

Gore said: “I’m really pleased and excited to be appointed chair of the Race Equality Taskforce. It’s a tough challenge but the work needs to be done and I want to see a timeframe with deadlines for implementing the actions we decide.

“[Anderson] recognised there needs to be change and that there are hard truths to face. There’s no need to state the case for this work. It’s now a matter of gathering information on what the barriers are and working out how institutions will bring those barriers down.”

Anderson added: “I am very pleased that Tracey, with her exceptional strengths, is willing to lead this taskforce, engage with the city and identify the positive actions we must follow to ensure our city can celebrate and honour our diversity.”