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New UKIP county councillors turn up to see new town mayor take over

Wednesday, 29th May 2013.

Haverhill's new town mayor, Cllr Roger Andre, took over at last night's annual meeting of Haverhill Town Council.

Cllr Andre, who has served as deputy mayor past year was voted in by both Labour and Tory sides of the council, as was the new deputy mayor, Cllr Maureen Byrne.

Members agreed to up the mayor's allowance for the year from £2,000 to £2,500 after hearing the current level came nowhere near covering the expenses incurred.

The outgoing mayor, Cllr Pat Hanlon, had earlier given his report on the past year's busy activities and said it had been an honour to serve as mayor during a year which had seen such spctacular events as the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations and the Olympic Torch Relay.

But Cllr Hanlon said he had attended well over 100 events and found it a humbling experience to see first hand the marvellous work which goes on in the community.

"I have seen the work of voluntary and community groups and I can tell you our town would struggle without them," he said.

He had heard many complimentary comments from mayors of other towns about Haverhill's flag display last year, which is being repeated this summer.

Cllr Hanlon's chosen charity for the year was the national Autistic Society (Suffolk Branch), for which he had raised £2,600 and would be presenting the cheque at a future town council meeting.

He said it had been a year of highs and lows, but hardest of all was the loss of town residents to road accidents.

"This town is a great place to live," he said, "but we need to keep working to make it safer."

A video had been put together by the Arts Centre's media hub, showing the highlights of the town council's year.

His report closed with a minute's silence for all British service personnel who had lost their lives during the year.

The meeting was open to the public for comment and questions about anything relating to Haverhill and there was some lively debate.

Subjects included a plea for directions about where to complain about issuessuch as street lighting and road maintenance, the latest draft of St Edmundsbury Borough Council's Vision 2031 planning document, the inadequacy of Coupals Road to take the current level of traffic, overgrowth around Sturmer Arches, lack of street lighting on the Clements estate, solar power for municipal housing, and the connections between the town council and Suffolk County Council.

Two of Haverhill's three Suffolk county councillors attended, the new UKIP ones Tony Brown and Julian Flood.

After The town council's Labour leader Cllr Maureen Byrne had expressed concern about Cllr Flood not living in Haverhill and not knowing much about the town, he pledged to do his best for his new electorate and pointed out that UKIP's national policies would matter at a local level.

Cllr Byrne said she hoped the new councillors had experience of the sort of negotiating which would be needed to put Haverhill's case in Ipswich.

Cllr Brown assured her that Haverhill was their number one priority.

Town councillors asked himto take on the street lighting issue already raised at the meeting, where lights have been turned off overnight to save money.

Suffolk County Council were not prepared to turn any back on unless specifically requested to by the police, who did not want to get involved as it was not their responsibility, Cllr Byrne said.

Haverhill Online News

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