Five new faces on Stratford council

There will be some fresh faces around Stratford’s council table this term.

Last weekend Stratford mayor Neil Volzke was elected unopposed, while five new councillors have been elected to his council.

In the Stratford urban ward all incumbent councillors kept their seats, while newcomers Peter Dalziel and Gloria Webby were also elected. In the rural ward, Graham Kelly retained his seat and was joined by newcomers Grant Boyde, Rick Coplestone and Keryn Walsh.

Mayor Volzke said he was pleased with the really good mix of people elected.

‘‘This is a preliminary result, but assuming it stands, I think we’ve got a really good mix of people. We’ve retained all five of the sitting councillors who stood. They’ve all been re-elected,’’ Volzke said. ’’The five new ones will all bring some individual skills and experience to the table, so that will be very welcome and I’m sure will add some value to council.’’

He said he had not yet spoken to anyone about the position of deputy mayor, but he would be making all the appointments he needed to over the next few weeks.

Volzke said it was going to be a busy term for the council.

‘‘We’ve got a number of things in our long term plan that we want to act upon. The future Broadway project is a biggie for us and we are going to launch that publicly on Monday night. We’ve also got the review of our district plan next year.’’