The newly formed Scarborough Town Council held its first meeting last night following the elections of councillors earlier this month.
A largely procedural meeting at Scarborough Town Hall agreed that the authority will be known as a town council rather than a parish council and that its chairman and vice chairman will be known as mayor and deputy mayor of Scarborough.
In a series of unanimous votes the council appointed an acting Town Clerk for six months, adopted a code of conduct, sorted it out its banking arrangements and approved a pensions policy for any staff
The meeting also approved appointed councillor Thomas Murray as the town council's first Mayor and councillor Sarah Mason as the Deputy Mayor.
Speaking to This is the Coast after the meeting Mayor Murray said getting the new Town Council up and running is an important development for Scarborough.
"I think it's very important for the people of Scarborough, to give the people of Scarborough back a voice at community level.
And, the Town Council is going be that voice to North Yorkshire Council and to other groups to try and put forward what the people of Scarborough want.
At the moment we have a staffing committee, a finance committee, and the communities and place committee, and the communities and place committee will be looking at things like the harbour and the athletic pitch , and all the derelict and abandoned spaces in Scarborough, to see what we can put together to try and form some sort of plan to regenerate Scarborough a little bit and, and reverse the decline that Scarborough has seen over the past many decades"
It's thought that Councillor Murray has become the youngest ever Mayor of Scarborough, his partner Councillor Stacy Bolton who was also elected to the town council in May's elections will become the Mayoress. The pair hope that they will be able to encourage more younger people to get involved in the work of the Town Council.
As well as providing the functions of a parish level council for the areas of Scarborough that were left 'un-parished' following the abolition of Scarborough Borough Council two years ago the new Town Council will also provide the ceremonial functions which were carried out by previous Mayors of Scarborough and most recently by the Charter Mayor.
Mayor Murray says that he sees keeping those traditions alive as an important part of the role.
"I think it's incredibly important, we had the mace out today and I think tradition is incredibly important to communities like Scarborough, and on the civic side, you know, the, the mayor's role is very important.
Engaging with the community, engagement with community groups and events, to try and be that ambassador for Scarborough really.
I have a full-time job as a care worker. I have a 2-year-old son and my partner the Mayoress also has a full-time job and we're both quite involved in the community,
I think hopefully it shows, a good role model for the the young people of Scarborough that you can achieve in Scarborough, and hopefully we can build engagement with the younger generation to get involved"
The new town council has launched it's website at https://www.scarboroughtowncouncil.gov.uk/ where details of future meetings will be published.
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