Former ship’s deck officer Albert Weatherill is new president of Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce

111th president, taking up the chains of office from Mike Whitehead.

Mr Weatherill joined the Merchant Navy as a young man, before becoming a ship’s deck officer. When he came ashore he joined a marine surveying company, McAusland & Turner where he stayed for 40 years, working his way up through the company to become its managing director and owner, growing the business and taking it international. He is also the chairman of the chamber’s Shipping, Transport and Renewables Committee.

He said: “The chamber is led by an excellent chief executive in Ian Kelly and represents an eclectic mix of businesses which belong to it from all around the Humber.

“I come from a marine background so my focus will be on the shipping side and it needs to be. The River Humber is pivotal to the Humber economy and links flow from our past to our future. Immingham, for example, is the biggest port by tonnage in the UK and the Humber is the fourth largest port complex in Europe with 40,000 shipping movements a year.

“There is a lot of industry, and a lot of environmental cost, with the area being the highest emitter of CO2 in the UK, but it is also a global leader in renewables. As the Government moves to Net Zero, there is £15bn being committed to reduce and capture CO2, not from Government, but from local businesses.

"The world is watching what we do here. The World Economic Forum which meets every year in Davos, highlighted two areas globally which are leading on renewables and carbon capture, one is in China, and the other is the Humber.

"This attention brings prosperity and jobs. There will be 10 years of construction to build a pipeline to capture our CO2 and that one project will create 10,000 jobs. And 25 per cent of all the rain that falls on England flows out through the Humber, it’s a centre point of all we do.”

Mr Weatherill’s vice president for the year is Kirk Akdemir, the managing director of AaGlobal, a translation business which has made its home in Hull after starting out in Worcester.