Buckinghamshire Council's Leader reflects on election after a year in the role
Martin Tett has been serving as interim leader after last years elections were cancelled
Buckinghamshire Council has officially elected its leader who has been acting in the role for a year.
Last year a national lockdown was announced 9 days before Buckinghamshire's Unitary authority was due to launch.
Years of planning and changes were thrown to the side when the May elections were then cancelled.
Cllr Martin Tett because interim Leader of Buckinghamshire Council, and was officially welcomed as the council leader following elections earlier this month.
He explained it been an interesting year for Buckinghamshire Council:
"It's all bizarre to be honest with you.
"All the elections we were hyped up for got put on ice, so we had to carry on with the old 5 councils members for a year.
"The interim executive got transformed into a cabinet... it was a strange time.
"But we got through it and we deliver some fantastic support to residents and businesses.
"Now though we have had the elections, we have the new councillors and I was elected as the leader so I am official now rather than a carry over!"
The first 'in-person' meeting was held this week since it came into being on 1st April 2020, saw Martin Tett elected as Leader of the Council for the next four years.
Two deputy leaders, Angela MacPherson and Gareth Williams will provide support in addition to their own cabinet responsibilities.
As Leader, Martin has his own set of portfolio responsibilities covering financial strategy, economic development, skills and employability, strategic infrastructure, policy and communications and the recovery plan for Buckinghamshire.
Councillor numbers have dropped down to 147, which was a government decision, but Cllr Martin Tett says that is still a big number:
"We've gone for 202 members of the heritage councillors, and now we have 147 which I think it makes us the largest body outside of the House of Lords?
"So we've still got far more members than we originally had in the business case, which was for 98 members.
"Currently we have a pressure than a saving because we have 147 members but that was a government decision so we have to to accept that for the next four years.
"But it feels very different everyone is enthusiastic about their roles and it feels like a new council.
"It has worked well for the last year, but hopefully Covid is something we are seeing the end of so we can look forward at getting our town centres back up, how we can help businesses and really a raft of things that were put on ice."