POPULAR councillor and environmental champion Carol Steward has died, aged 63.

Mrs Steward was a Bicester town councillor for 12 years and led the town to win a string of awards in the Britain in Bloom and Thames and Chilterns in Bloom competitions.

She was particularly proud when Bicester won a gold award for best town in the region in 2006, and two years later a Royal Horticultural Society Silver Gilt Award as runner-up in the Britain in Bloom Large Town Award.

Mrs Steward was also an active Cherwell district councillor, serving since 2007, and was a former chairman of the council and employee joint committee in 2010/11.

Born in Penarth, Wales, the former hairdresser and clothing store manager, moved to Bicester in 1984 with her former husband Les to take over the Red Lion pub, in Stratton Audley.

The couple also ran the Sow & Pigs at Poundon for a time.

Mrs Steward, who had a son Daniel, and two stepdaughters Kate Simmons and Jo Steward, was also a governor at Bicester Community College since 1999, and was a former governor at Southwold Primary School, also in Bicester.

A keen gardener, she helped establish and drove the community college’s ‘ground force days’ scheme where volunteers were encouraged to spend a few hours on a Saturday morning sprucing up the school grounds.

Chairman of governors Roger Dyson paid tribute to her work for the school, saying: “She was extremely committed, very hardworking and she will be an enormous loss.”

In 2004, Mrs Steward was given just weeks to live after being diagnosed with leukaemia.

But she defied doctors and battled through chemotherapy and eventually had a bone marrow transplant. During her illness she campaigned to recruit more people to the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Register.

But the disease returned, and she died at Oxford’s Churchill Hospital. Her funeral will take place in Garth Park, on Friday, August 12, at 11am – the first funeral service to take place in the park.