New Regional Council Chairman elected

At today's inaugural meeting of the Southland Regional Council (Environment Southland), councillors were sworn in and Nicol Horrell was elected chairman.

There were two nominations for the position: Councillor Nicol Horrell (7 votes) and Councillor Eric Roy (5 votes).

Councillor Horrell was the immediate past deputy chairman. This is his fourth term on the Council.

He replaces Ali Timms, who served on the Council from 2001. She was chairman for the past two terms, but was not re-elected to the Council.

Chairman Horrell said he was ready to commit the time and energy needed to carry out the role and identified Government's National Policy Statement for fresh water as the council's biggest challenge.

There's a lot of talent around this table which has potential to form a strong

team to meet the challenges we will face over the next three years.

Councillor Lloyd McCallum was elected deputy chairman. There were two nominations for the position: Councillor Lloyd McCallum (7 votes) and Councillor Eric Roy (5 votes).

The following chairs were elected to council committees:

• Grant Hubber, Strategy and Policy Committee
• Ross Cockburn, Regional Services Committee
• Neville Cook, Regulatory Committee
• Maurice Rodway, Organisational Performance and Audit Committee
• Neville Cook, South Port (subcommittee)
• Eric Roy, Regional Transport
• Neville Cook, Southland Civil Defence Emergency Management Group

The full council includes 12 councillors elected by the public in six constituencies.

Nicol Horrell (Western), Lloyd McCallum (Southern), Grant Hubber (Hokonui), Ross Cockburn (Fiordland); Robert Guyton, Maurice Rodway, Neville Cook, Rowly Currie, Eric Roy and Lyndal Ludlow (Invercargill-Rakiura); Jeremy McPhail and David Stevens (Eastern-Dome).