THE new Marlborough mayor has said he will do his utmost to deliver the affordable housing the town desperately needs as well as trying to find solutions around its age-old traffic problems.

Coun Mervyn Hall became the 707th mayor of the town at Monday's Mayor Making ceremony at a packed town hall and already the former electronic engineer has ambitious plans for the year ahead.

At the top of his to-do list is to secure the transfer of the town's youth centre, the St Margaret's Mead building, pressing ahead with the neighbourhood plan and in particular trying to deliver affordable housing for residents and looking at ways to relieve traffic congestion and finding more parking places.

"It is a great honour and a privilege to take on this hugely important role. I am very proud to be the mayor of Marlborough. It is a very exciting challenge and one that I am sure will go quite quickly," said Coun Hall, who was brought up in Leicester.

"When I moved to Marlborough in 2003 I certainly had no ambitions to go into politics but after I retired I was looking for things to do and since I became a councillor four years ago it has been a very rewarding and important part of my life.

"Now that I am mayor, I will do everything possible to try and deliver the affordable housing Marlborough dearly needs. The problem we have is that when developers come to a town they tend to build other things as affordable housing does not give them a big profit but we will fight to deliver it.

"Also there is a need to tackle parking and congestion issues and we can look at alternative parking sites that are on the edge of town. There is also the problem of air pollution so we have a lot of things to tackle but we are up for the challenge."

The former deputy mayor has chosen Julia's Hospice and voluntary organisation Home Start Kennet as his two charities this year.

"I was looking for charities that help people in Marlborough and in particular children and that is what Home Start are good at and Julia's Hospice are about to open their hospice soon so I want to help broaden their profile," he said.

Coun Lisa Farrell was also sworn in as deputy mayor on Monday.