The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) Board of Trustees has announced that Julie Barratt has been appointed as the new president of CIEH.

Barratt is an environmental health practitioner (EHP) and has worked in EHO roles and led legal services teams in local Government for a range of authorities, as well as having a period in private practice as a barrister.

She was a member of CIEH staff as its director for Wales from 2002 to 2017 before retiring in 2018 to run her own legal training company. She has held a number of committee and board roles connected with the environmental health profession and in other sectors.

As president, Barratt will work with the Board of Trustees who have elected Terenja Humphries to replace Siraj Choudhury as chair of the Board of Trustees when his term of office ends in December. Her term of office will commence on 1st January 2021.

Speaking about her new role, Barratt said: “It is an honour to be appointed president of CIEH, an organisation of which I have been proud to be a member and for which I previously worked for some 15 years.

“As the current coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated, environmental health remains as current and as important now as it has always been, and thanks to the sterling efforts of the CIEH staff the profile of our organisation has never been higher.

“I am looking forward to working with the team and with all of our members in taking the organisation forward and ensuring that the contribution that environmental health practitioners make to securing, improving and maintaining public health is understood, appreciated and supported.”