20 Years Ago My Mayor’s Inaugural Speech Was This
Councillor Phil Bateman’s The Mayor of Wolverhampton’s Inaugural Speech
delivered 18.00 Wednesday 18th May 2005.
Councillor Phil Bateman MBE “City Councillors, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, this is indeed an historic occasion. Not because I am being installed as your Mayor! There have been 149 of them, so this election is not quite that historic.
What is historic is that the Local Government process has today leapt from the Civic Centre and is now in the homes of our citizens via the internet.
Wolverhampton, a City of near on a quarter of a million people, is today in cyberspace! Connecting with our electorate in their homes, in their offices and potentially while they are on holiday in far off lands. I know that our web cast will be viewed in Australia, in Canada and in Portugal. So Gwen who is in her daughters home in the Algarve, yes. I do value your support.
June & Terry in Oz, I hope that you are enjoying the pictures and we will see you here in August! Oh and Johnny Cromwell in Canada. No, I never dreamed to be doing this when we played soccer, and you kicked lumps out of the opposition during Sunday League games!
This Mayor-Making ceremony is being beamed via the World Wide Web across an information network that is as flexible as it is powerful. It is in itself a regeneration tool that we have to fully embrace.
Wolverhampton is amongst the first of the Local Authorities in this region that has taken this step. It speaks volumes for the modern outlook that we have here in Wolverhampton.
Our future is in our willingness to embrace change that will drive our ultimate success, because as well as being in a modern world; we are in a very competitive world.
I want the Mayoralty this year to be different; I want to make my mark on our civic life in unique and different ways. I also want to be able to carry the role off with the same sophistication and authority that Mayor Hart epitomised his year with.
Both I and Mary my Mayoress are indebted to Alan & Beryl Hart for showing us the way. We were very enthusiastic apprentices! They were the consummate Mayor and Mayoress and Wolverhampton is very proud of them.
I hope that we can during our year of office introduce different and innovative events that will do much for our City Image. The theme that will drive me this year is – ‘Industry commerce and culture. Wolverhampton the first City of the Black Country’.
I am itching to work with the Cabinet Members and the Chief Officers in progressing our City. I am bubbling with enthusiasm about this role.
I want now to thank my Mover and Seconder I think they did a fine job in giving away so much about our lives. For Councillor Dave Jones a special thank you because a lot of the Ward work will rest on your shoulders my dear friend during this mayoral year!
We already have an International City and I want to enhance this image even further.
I am to introduce a Canada Day celebration on the 1st July’ and the programme that I am putting together will be released very soon.
The Canadian High Commission has been very helpful to date and I want to thank them publicly for their support.
Since Queen Elizabeth the Second granted Wolverhampton City status in the year 2000. We seem to have gained a whole new confidence. What makes me make that statement?
The fact is that this City can attract a new private sector led development which will provide another public square, a further 89 retail units also a cinema.
New cafes bars and restaurants and an 800 space underground car park as well as 100 new residential homes will add a sparkle to our City. This is due on line and trading in about 2008. I cant wait to see this development, it is the result of business having confidence in this city!
I hope that at the end of my Mayoral year that Wolverhampton will be announcing similar land mark schemes. We have to be hungry for success and investment.
On the sporting side I remain hopeful that during my term of office, the professional football team (Wolves) that has its home in the City, will be successful in gaining promotion to join the other three big West Midlands Football Clubs in the Premier League!
I know that many of my friends and my work colleagues are keen to know what our Charities during this year will be. They are The Divine Onkar Mission, a Wolverhampton-based charity that is devoted to making life better for people who are ill or orphaned in rural India.
I hope, during the course of this year, to go, with the Mayoress, to visit India and see how the charity is coping in administering the aid that Black Country people have raised.
I will also be supporting the Everyman Charity devoted to informing and raising awareness in men, of testicular cancer. I have special knowledge of this disease and would like to use this year in encouraging men to be as aware of this uniquely male form of cancer, as women are of breast cancer.
Finally my third charity I shall be supporting is the Children Ward at New Cross Hospital in Wednesfield.
So finally a few thank you’ s. Thank you Travel West Midlands & Chief Executive Brian Jackson for being so flexible about my day job, to Gunnebo Security for whom Mary works and has also taken a very similar position.
To Stuart and Emma in my office at TWM- because of the extra workload you will bear whilst I perform this important Local Government role as The Mayor of the City of Wolverhampton for the year 2005 and 2006.”