ROSS-on-Wye has a new mayor with Cllr Bev Pope taking up the position which is now in its 50th year.

Outgoing mayor Cllr Louis Stark explained that the reorganisation of local government in the early 1970s, saw a number of town councils adopting the role of mayor from 1974, instead of maintaining the previous position of chairman.

Cllr Chris Bartrum proposed the nomination of Cllr Pope and Cllr Julian Utting outlined that Cllr Pope had been quietly working away in the background since she was first elected to the town council and added: “Cllr Pope is already an active participant in the town, and I feel she will enhance this by undertaking the role of mayor.”

Outgoing mayor Cllr Stark said: “It was a privilege to be the town’s mayor for the past year.

“I would like to thank my wife for driving me about since I broke my arm a month ago. We’ve attended numerous events, which I dubbed the ‘broken arm farewell tour’, and in reality this has been a struggle. But over the 12 months in office, I have attended 80 civic events.

“As a mayor, the position entails having a unifying role in keeping the council together. Most of what a mayor does is reactive and is driven by other people’s agendas. But to me this is missing a trick as I believe the mayor should be more proactive in future.”

The new mayor, Cllr Pope thanked the council for voting her into the top civic position and added: “I hope we can all work well together over the coming year, which will inevitably be fairly political with the forthcoming general election.

“I would like to think we can treat others as we would want to be treated ourselves. If we stick to this principal, we will work well as a council. We have been doing this up to now, despite the many differences that often surface.

“I think it is important that we listen to the opinions of others and be open to reasoned argument. We are elected to serve the people of Ross and not ourselves.”

Cllr Linden Delves was elected as deputy mayor of the council.