A NEW mayor will take the robes and chains of office in Swindon tomorrow.

And in another first, the town’s first citizen will be elected by a virtual meeting of councillors.

While the formalities of nomination and voting still have to be gone through, it would be a great surprise if councillor Garry Perkins did not take the step up from deputy mayor to the top job – becoming the chairman of Swindon Borough Council.

It is the convention that deputy mayors are then elected to a year as mayor – although it is by no means a given.

As a Conservative, Coun Perkins can expect the support of the majority of the council chamber – his party holds 30 of the 56 seats currently occupied.

The meeting, which will start at 2.30pm tomorrow and which should allow members of the public to log in, will be purely a civic occasion. The mayor will be elected and sworn in and his deputy also elected.

Where normally new councillors would also be attending their first meeting, the postponement of this year’s local elections to 2021 means that will not be the case.

The full council meeting will be followed, as scheduled, by a meeting of the licensing committee which will elect its chairman and the smaller licensing panel which hears appeals.