IT was a great shock to see in your last week’s paper the article about the town council chairman adopting, without consultation or voting, the name of ‘Mayor’.

I trust she is to be known as the Andover Town Council Mayor.

Many of you will remember my parents George and Ruby Lynn.

Dad was Mayor of Andover Borough in 1964 and my mother had the privilege of being Mayor in 1970.

The position of Mayor of Andover Borough and now Test Valley is an honour bestowed on a Councillor by their fellow Councillors, all of whom are voted in by the public, and having had the honour of being Mayor in 2010/11 you quickly realise how respected this, mainly ceremonial position, is to the people of the Borough.

A Mayor of Test Valley will attend approximately 600 events in their year both in the North and South of the Borough.

To have a Mayor a Town needs a Royal Charter and Andover’s charter is some 400 years older than Romsey, yet they kept their Mayor in the 1974 new boundary changes.

This was because if your population was under 9,000 then the Mayor remained and in the case of Andover we had a larger population, so we lost our Mayor.

The Mayor of a Borough becomes the First Citizen, second only to the Queen and her representatives, and as such should be shown this courtesy by local people.

You may not know that a Town Council chairman can call themselves ‘Town Mayor’ but they are still a Town Council chairman and they are only ‘Town Mayor of the five parishes of Andover.

The position holds none of the privilege and humility of being a Borough Mayor with a Queen’s Charter, in fact to visit another parish, such as Charlton, they have to get permission from that parish council chairman.

We have been very fortunate in the last few years with Iris, Karen and now Carl who have been very active in the Borough as Mayor and I leave you with the question – do we need a Town Mayor in Andover?

I am sure the editor would be pleased to receive your comments.

Councillor Chris Lynn, Winchester Road, Andover.