Melksham Town Council has axed council leader positions in its first meeting after the election, following a year and a half of in-fighting.

Melksham has elected Jon Hubbard to serve his second term as mayor of the town.

Cllr Hubbard will be serving as mayor for the next year with Colin Goodhind as the deputy mayor.

This is the first mayor making ceremony since councils up and down the country have returned to face-to-face meetings.

Writing on his election via social media, Cllr Hubbard said: "I was delighted last night to be elected as Town Mayor of Melksham by fellow town councillors. It was especially nice for it to be an unanimous election, truly showing that the new council will be working together."

The Melksham Town Council also voted unanimously to abolish the leader and deputy leader roles of the council – citing the tumultuous past 18 months.

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“Melksham Town Council is a relatively small council, with just 15 members, and is regulated by the Local Government Act which forbids the placing of any executive powers in the hands of any single councillor,” Cllr Hubbard said.

“We believe the experience of the past 18 months with the roles of leader and deputy leader demonstrate that these roles at this time are not appropriate for the council.”

Over the course of the last year-and-a-half, the town council had been embroiled with in-fighting which saw former Lib Dem councillors – Cllr Hubbard included – become Independent.

Much of the fallout began with the onset of Covid and continued throughout the year.

Cllr Phil Alford said: “I think it’s important to recognise that proportionality on committees does inhibit getting the right mix of people.

“There’s no reason why we can’t open things up and make sure those people who are most interested, have the most to offer are able to contribute to the town.

“The role of leader and deputy leader are unnecessary, and it kind of implies you need a leader of the opposition as well.

“And again these are fairly divisive.”

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Interestingly, it was also proposed that committees would no longer be politically balanced, but would instead be made up of “the best people to sit on each committee”.

Other local government shake ups include: renaming the town asset committee to the town asset and amenities committee, scrapping the HR sub-committee in favour of a staffing committee – which would meet twice a year to monitor staff rail fairs and appraisals, and would deal with staffing matters as brought to it by the town clerk.

The King George V sub-committee would also be scrapped and its duties merged with the town asset and amenities committee, the town hall and assembly hall sub-committee is now the town and community halls working group and the finance and admin committee was changed to finance, admin and performance committee.

All these changes were voted for unanimously by the town council.