On Being a Virtual Mayor

I am extremely proud and honoured to have been elected Mayor of this wonderful, vibrant, creative and diverse town of ours.

My fellow councillors have bestowed a great privilege and responsibility upon me and I express my sincere appreciation to them for placing their trust in me. 

I take this responsibility and the trust you have shown in me very seriously, and I commit to serving the people of Bridport to the best of my abilities with enthusiasm, compassion and devotion to our community.

In normal times I would now be looking forward to a busy and exciting year ahead promoting our exceptional Town and spending as much time as possible meeting local people and finding out more about everything that makes Bridport such a special place. But these are not normal times.
In Bridport we have a civic mayor who is also the chair of the council. The mayor carries out ceremonial duties and chairs the full council meetings, but can’t make decisions about council business.

Due to the current lockdown and social distancing rules these roles are being carried out virtually e.g. full council meetings, and committee meetings are successfully being carried out via video conferencing.

One advantage of this is that I no longer need to leave home to attend a meeting, and equally you members of the public are in same position. You do not need to have a computer and access to the internet to attend you can simply use your home phone. I would be interested to hear your views on this and whether it could be a means of increasing public participation in local politics, decision making and widening democracy. The schedule of town council meetings can be viewed at the following link: https://www.bridport-tc.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/2020-2021-calendar-of-meetings.pdf

The normal calendar of events planned for the Mayor to attend has sadly had to be put on hold. However, I am determined to do my utmost to promote and publicise as widely as possible the many wonderful things that continue to go on in Bridport despite all of the current challenges.