A COVENTRY street has been named after the late first female Asian city councillor and former Lady Mayoress Meto Lakha.
Her husband, the ex-Lord mayor and councillor Ram Lakha, said: “I couldn’t make her the Taj Mahal but I got her a street name.”
He took to Twitter to thank council deputy leader Abdul Khan for his support for helping to name the street Meto Lakha Close, off the A444 near the Ricoh Arena, unveiled yesterday (Tuesday).
Coun Lakha, the former Lord Mayor and long-standing Labour councillor for Binley and Willenhall, told BBC Coventry and Warwickshire: “This is the first time ever an Asian name has appeared on a road (in Coventry). So it is historic.
“From that point of view it’s important for the community.
“For me, she’s my wife.. so having her name there is wonderful.”
Meto passed away in 2012 in her 50s in what her family said was a life of determination in battling various health conditions including Lupus, and suffering two strokes, in which she remained “committed to her social responsibilities”.
The former Lyng Hall School pupil first attended Labour party meetings to act as a translator for her father.
She got actively involved in local communities and became a school governor from 1990 to 2004.
She was a Radford ward councillor from 1992 to 1994 and a Foleshill ward councillor from May 2000 to 2004.
A Just Giving page to aid Lupus UK stated in her memory in 2012 stated: “She gained great respect from Foleshill residents and her colleagues when she left hospital during a six-month stay against doctors’ orders to attend a meeting in October 2003 in a wheelchair to vote on the multi-million project to build the Ricoh Arena and to make sure it went ahead, a meeting that lasted 10 hours, after which she went back into hospital.”
