BRADNINCH'S new mayor and town council chairman says it is “an honour and a privilege to have been elected” and thanked council members for their support.

Former pilot Rick Andrews, who moved to Bradninch in 2007, has nominated Teenage Cancer Trust as his charity for the year and says he is really looking forward to challenge of the role.

He said: “It is both an honour and a privilege to have been elected Chairman of the Town Council and Mayor for the ensuing year.

“My sincere thanks go to the members of the Council for the trust they have placed in me. I will endeavour to fulfil the responsibilities of the Office to the very best of my ability and to act in the wider interests of the community as a whole.

“My wife, Vicki, and I have a strong link with Devon, having met and married in Plymouth when she was serving in the Army and I was in the Royal Air Force.

“I subsequently transferred to the Army to fly helicopters and over the next 30 years we have lived at various places in the UK as well as in Germany and in Finland.

“We moved to Bradninch in May 2007 from Helsinki, where I had been the British Defence Attaché.

“Since then, I have completed three years as Chairman of the Hele Society and almost five years on the Council. Vicki is a member of both the Bradninch Players and the Bradninch Festival Choir.

“My nominated charity for the year is the Teenage Cancer Trust and it gives me great pleasure to report that at the Coffee Morning in the Guildhall on Saturday May 17 we raised £260.

“It is my intention to meet as many of you as possible over the coming twelve months and to represent the Town as often and as fully as I can.”