MR ALUN Evans will chair the British Wool Marketing Board for the last time next week.

A Welsh sheep farmer, he was first elected to the post in 1985 and has been re-elected unopposed every year since then. He farms 1,000 acres in Gwynnedd with his son, producing meat and wool.

Changes to board membership and structure mean he, and several other members, will retire from the board on September 30.

Mr Evans joined the board as producer member for North Wales in 1981, becoming vice chairman two years later and then chairman.

He was awarded a CBE in 1996 for his work with the board and has held, and continues to hold, office in a number of prominent agriculture-related businesses in the UK.

A Fellow of the Royal Agricultural Society, he has received several awards for his services to agriculture.

Mr Evans has travelled world-wide on wool board business, and led the first British wool mission to China. He was a member of the first British textile industry mission to Nepal.

A firm believer in marketing and agricultural co-ops, he was prominent in the formation of the European Wool Group