DEPARTING mayor Cllr Faisal Rashid admits he 'feels blessed' after getting widespread support from the public over the past year.

Cllr Les Morgan (LAB – Latchford West) officially took over from Cllr Rashid (LAB – Chapelford and Old Hall) on Monday.

Cllr Rashid, who is Labour's Warrington South parliamentary candidate, has raised around £60,000 for his mayoral charities during his term.

He said: "Firstly, I would like to apologise for the quiet end to my mayoral year, when I had to stand down 20 days before the end of my term of office due to being selected as parliamentary candidate for Warrington South.

"We would like to congratulate Cllr Morgan and his wife Gwyn for becoming mayor and mayoress – we wish them a very successful and enjoyable year ahead.

"We feel blessed that we have received so much support from you all and the people of Warrington over the past 12 months.

"Your support has helped us to continue working for the many successful initiatives that have taken place during the year.

"There are too many examples of the positive feedback for me to speak about one by one but we have received so many nice words that we very much appreciate from all areas of the community.

"These kind words have encouraged me and motivated me to carry on my passion and deliver for the community I live in.

"The passion I have talked about during my year is economic development and supporting integration of communities.

"During my year in office I have very much focused on these two areas.

"The amount of work carried out in my year has not been easy.

"It has been very challenging continuing with a full-time job and supporting a young family but one thing I said at the beginning of my year was that I 'would make you all proud'.

"That promise, I took seriously, no matter if that meant working long hours, evenings and weekends – I did it to make the community proud.

"I would like to thank my wife Aleeza for being such a great support and great mayoress who was always behind me."