Unanimous vote to retain non-political post

8 February 2010

Ellesmere Port’s Charter Trustees have voted unanimously to retain the post of Mayor for the town.

The Trustees meeting was told that a recent survey carried out by Cheshire West and Chester Council’s Research, Intelligence and Consultation Team revealed that local people wanted to keep the post by nearly two to one in favour.

Councillor Gareth Anderson put forward the motion to retain the post which was seconded by Cllr Kimberley Anderson and Cllr Bob Crompton.

"Now that we have voted for the post of Mayor for Ellesmere Port to remain, we can build for the future" said Cllr Gareth Anderson.

Cllr Anderson added "The role can be promoted more and I believe the Mayor can become even more closely involved with Ellesmere Port’s community."

The post of Mayor, a non-political figurehead, was created last April and Councillor Tony Sherlock is the first Mayor of the town. He said: "I am extremely pleased that the post is to continue because now there is no question mark hanging over the future of the mayoral role for the people of Ellesmere Port.

"Throughout my year in office I have represented and promoted Ellesmere Port in so many different ways and have been able to publicly thank residents and different organisations for all the hard work they do. I have thoroughly enjoyed undertaking the role."

The consultation document states that the majority of questionnaires about whether to keep the post of Mayor were completed face to face with interviewers.

60 percent of people who took part wanted the role of Ellesmere Port Mayor to continue and 32 percent did not.

The Charter Trustees also set a precept of £34,000 which equates to a cost of £1.62 for a band D property to pay for the post of Mayor. This was achieved by using 50 percent of the forecast under spend from the current financial year - approximately £17,000 - towards reducing next year’s precept.