00:00However, tonight I'm honoured to present to this council and for this cabinet, my resignation.
00:09The moment many people here at Sevenoaks District Council had been waiting for,
00:16as Roddy Hogarth resigned as leader of the council following a vote of no confidence last month
00:23that left him fighting for his political future.
00:27So I declare Councillor Maskell is duly elected as leader of the council.
00:36There were only two contenders to the throne, with Liberal Democrat Alan Lehmann being beaten by Conservative Kevin Maskell, 24 votes to 14.
00:49The new leader has a big job ahead of him.
00:53His predecessor's tenure was rocked with defections,
00:58leaving him in charge of a minority administration during a crucial period for the council.
01:05Can Councillor Maskell set a course to calmer waters?
01:10That is definitely the aim, is to steer the ship in a calm direction.
01:15I think it's absolutely a perfect description of what I want to do.
01:21So my aim is to ensure that continuity, but also in addition to bringing perhaps many more viewpoints
01:31into any of the discussions and how to move forward.
01:37It's a very complex area, complex time, and that needs many more heads to get around how to go forward.
01:44Moscow's ascendancy was supported by the West Kent Independent Group,
01:51made up of the same disgruntled Conservatives that made the previous leader's position untenable.
01:58Will a safe pair of hands help bring the wikis back into the fold?
02:03I think this is a start point for us.
02:05So we said to them, basically, once you have a new leader, we will talk to you.
02:09They have the ability, potentially, to work with us to form a majority again.
02:13We're not going to come running back to the Conservatives,
02:15but whether we can form some kind of political cooperation is what we need to explore now.
02:22But we haven't been able to explore it up until now because of the previous leaders still being in post.
02:27So new chapter now to be written, and I can't tell you what the answer is yet
02:31because we haven't even had those discussions yet.
02:33The vote caps off a nearly four-hour meeting.
02:36Whatever relief there was in the room was tempered with exhaustion.
02:42But there are still expensive capital projects to get over the line.
02:48A new political geography to establish as the government reshapes Kent Councils.
02:55It may be a new chapter for Sevenoaks, but it won't necessarily be a quieter one.
03:03Olly Leader in West Kent
03:06We have a new picture of the people who were going to do that.
03:12It will be a new feature, so it's a pretty impressive part of what we're going to do for the rest of the people who are going to be doing this kind of thing.
03:19Let's get to the next one.
03:20Remember, our kleinere community reshapes Kent Councils.
03:24We're going to talk to you guys here.
03:25We're going to talk to you guys about how we're dealing with today.
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