Gillingham and Shaftesbury have elected their mayors for the coming years.

As a special mayor-making ceremony in the town hall on Wednesday 15 May, Councillor Barry Von Clemens was unanimously voted in as mayor of Gillingham for 2019-20.

The deputy mayor is Councillor Paul Harris.

Meanwhile Shaftesbury’s town councillors have elected a Liberal Democrat to be its first mayor of the new council with a Conservative as his deputy.

Former county councillor Tim Cook, who became one of Shaftesbury’s two Liberal Democrat members to the new Dorset Council on 2 May, was elected mayor for 2019-20 at the council’s annual meeting on 14 May.

Deputy mayor is last year’s mayor Councillor Piers Brown who was elected to the new Dorset Council on 2 May to represent the Conservatives for the Cranborne Chase area.

Shaftesbury council is to hold a formal mayor-making on 11 June.

Read a fuller version of this story in the June issue of Gillingham & Shaftesbury News