AFTER 15 years at the helm steering Chester Zoo to becoming one of the country’s biggest tourist attractions, the director general has announced he is stepping down.

Professor Gordon McGregor Reid plans to leave his position later this year and return to academic work and research.

Tony Williams, chairman of the zoo’s trustees, said: “Gordon feels it is the right time for him to make this move and I know that, as a professional biologist, he is very keen to fulfil his passion for zoological research, field conservation and university teaching.

“Gordon has done a sterling job for the Society. He has seen us through some very challenging times and has transformed the Zoo into the UK’s number one wildlife attraction of choice.”

Prof McGregor Reid, 62, has enjoyed a distinguished decade and a half running the zoo, which has grown from “comparatively small beginnings in the 1930s” to become the second most visited leisure attraction in the UK.

He started out as a researcher at the British Museum of Natural History and is a past President of the Linnean Society of London, as well as a former Trustee of the National Museums, Liverpool.

He was a UK Government-appointed Zoo Inspector from 1984-2008, and has acted as a consultant for the World Wide Fund for Nature, Conservation International, Fauna and Flora International and many other bodies including conducting major conservation and research reviews for national governments overseas.