COUNCILLOR Margaret Brace starts her third term as mayor of Neyland, following a ceremony on May 18.

Cllr Brace thanked fellow councillors for their ‘faith and trust’ in electing her, and nominated her husband Terry as consort.

She said the council must continue to put the interests of local people first, in order to ‘provide the town with what it richly deserves’.

The council’s priorities, she added, should be to enter the second phase of improvements to the play park, addressing elderly housing needs and maintaining the town’s twinning with Sanguinet, in France.

Cllr Simon Hancock, who was mayor for 2014-15, takes over as her deputy for the coming year.

Looking back on the last 12 months, Cllr Hancock said he had seen the council make ‘probably its most important decision for many years’ in agreeing to join up with Neyland Community Interest Company (CIC) in the development of a new community facility at the Athletic Club.

He also praised the council’s recent decision to spend more than £11,000 on a new CCTV system to combat the ‘long-standing and on-going problem of anti-social behaviour by young people and their vehicles at Brunel Quay’.

Other highlights included the completion of a new housing development at St Clement’s Road, the resurfacing of John Street in anticipation of the new development at the Athletic Club, and the return of the summer carnival.

He lamented ‘major changes’ at the town’s pupil referral unit (PRU) but welcomed the re-homing of the youth club in the former PRIDE building, which he said had ‘resulted in much better facilities for them’.