Capital to get its own diplomat

A new ambassador role at Wellington City Council will aim to help the organisation better interact with international communities and visitors to the city.

That’s according to new mayor Justin Lester, who has assigned a range of new and old portfolios to his incoming councillors before their inauguration next week.

Returning councillor Simon Woolf will take on a new Wellington ambassador role, which Lester said was a natural fit. ‘‘I had been thinking how can we better reflect our partnership with diplomatic corps and at the same time Simon was interested in the international relations portfolio and playing a role there.’’

While Lester sees himself as a Wellington ambassador, he said he ‘‘couldn’t be everywhere at once.

‘‘In the last few days we’ve had more than 200 requests for meetings and events, so I just can’t do all of them,’’ he said.

That’s where he foresaw Woolf playing a key role, attending local events and ‘‘having a real presence’’ on behalf of the council.

Lester will take on the arts and culture portfolio as well as major city projects in order to ‘‘maintain a direct leadership role’’ in the projects he said would define the city’s future.

Additional to the ambassador role are a handful of other new portfolios, including children and young people, iwi partnership and the living wage.

Lester was particularly excited to introduce a city scientist portfolio, handed to Northern ward councillor Dr Peter Gilberd who has a PhD in physics.

‘‘I’m over the moon about it. I’ve always been an advocate for the fact that social sciences can make a big contribution to the policy and direction of out local and central governments,’’ Gilberd said.

He hoped to initially establish a seminar series to bring together those in the science sector with the public.

Other notable portfolio changes include Simon Marsh taking over the economic development portfolio from outgoing councillor Jo Coughlan, while first-time councillor Chris Calvi-Freeman will focus on transport strategy and operations.

Calvi-Freeman ran his campaign on a platform of ‘‘better roads, better transport, better local government’’ and said he was delighted to have the trust of Lester to follow through on those promises.

‘‘It’s a very important portfolio at this watershed period that we’re in with the ‘Get Wellington Moving’ programme in full swing.’’

He was looking forward to working with the NZ Transport Agency and Greater Wellington Regional Council to agree on a way forward on several roading projects, including the Ngauranga to airport route.