Over 20 Hertfordshire residents have been included in this year's New Year Honours list.

Special honours are given to people who make outstanding contributions to their community and the country, with the New Year Honours acknowledging 1,227 people in the UK this year.

They range from politicians, musicians, and actors to senior diplomats and elite sports stars.

In total, these 22 people from Hertfordshire have been chosen.

Order of the Bath

Ruth Leonie Hannant. Director General, Policy, Department for Culture, Media and Sport. For Public Service. (Bishop’s Stortford)

Neil Brendan O’Connor CBE. Lately Director, Building Safety Programme, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. For services to Building Safety. (Hemel Hempstead)

Order of the British Empire

Nicholas Emery. Founding Partner and Chief Executive Officer, Brandtech Media. For services to the Media and Marketing Industries. (St Albans)

Edward James Gray. Lately Chair, Antivirals Taskforce. For services to Public Health during Covid-19. (Radlett)

Salim Hassanali Moledina Janmohamed. For charitable and voluntary services to Faith Communities. (Rickmansworth)

Sarah Pateman. Community Safety Manager, Stevenage Borough Council. For services to the Victims of Domestic Abuse in Hertfordshire.

Gavin Paul Stollar. Honorary Chair, Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel. For political service to the Jewish Community. 

Vinaichandra Guduguntla Venkatesham. Chief Executive Officer, Arsenal Football Club. For services to Sport. (Hertford)

Sheila Ann Abrahams. Founder, Freelance Hairdressers’ Association. For services to the Hairdressing Industry. (Borehamwood)

Dr Sanjay Bhandari. Chair, Kick It Out. For services to Sport. (Potters Bar)

Justin Anthony Cohen. News Editor, Jewish News. For services to Holocaust Remembrance and to the Jewish Community.

Helen Adesuwa Imatitkua Fadipe. Founder and Chair, BAME Planners Network. For services to Town Planning. (Waltham Cross)

Malcolm Ernest Ferris-Lay. Trustee, Tea Trade Benevolent Society and Scottish Tartan Authority. For Charitable Service. (Tring)

Dr Claire Mairead Goodman. Professor of Health Care Research, Centre for Research in Public Health and Community Care, University of Hertfordshire. For services to Older People. (Hertford)

Sabit Jakupovic. Member, Genocide Survivors’ Consultative Group, Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. For services to Genocide Education and Commemoration. (Hertford)

Timothy Foster Pick. Lately First UK Offshore Wind Champion and Chair, Offshore Wind Acceleration Taskforce. For services to Offshore Wind Energy. (Radlett)

Luke Thomas Rigg JP. Lead Diversity and Community Relations Magistrate for England and Wales. For services to Diversity in the Judiciary. (Hertford)

Professor William Peter Saunders. Chief Creative Officer, StoryFutures at Royal Holloway University. For services to the Creative Industries. (Harpenden)

Dr Richard Kenneth Howard Wyse. Director of Clinical Development, Cure Parkinson’s. For services to Medicine in Parkinson’s Disease. (Rickmansworth)

Medallist of the Order of the British Empire

Reginald John Cording. For services to the community in Barley, Hertfordshire. (Royston)

Noel Desmond Cronin. Founder, Talking Pictures TV. For services to Television Broadcasting. (Chipperfield)

Kings Police Medal

Owen Robert Weatherill. Lately, Assistant Chief Constable, Hertfordshire Constabulary and National Policing Coordination Centre.