At Full Council on Thursday (May 23) it was the annual changing of the guard as outgoing Chair Percy Prowse handed the reins to Councillor Hart.
It follows Cllr Hart, who was elected to his home ward of Wembury and Erme in 1989 and now represents Wembury and Bickleigh after boundary changes, announcing he was standing down as leader last month.
As the independent Chair of the Council, it will be Councillor Hart’s role to preside over Full Council meetings and to represent the DCC at civic and ceremonial functions.
John Hart, Chair of Devon County Council, said:
“These past 15 years as Council Leader have been a privilege and I’m grateful to the residents of Devon for putting their faith in me, for giving me the opportunity to serve them and the county that I love for so long.
“I want to thank my fellow Councillors for giving me a further opportunity to serve Devon as Chair for the next 12 months.”
Also at the meeting Councillor Colin Slade, the local member for Tiverton East and former town mayor, stood down as Vice-Chair and Cllr Pru Maskell, is his replacement.
Pru is a former staff nurse at North Devon District Hospital, having trained with Plymouth University.
Married with four children she stood for election in 2021 for Braunton Rural after jointly setting up and running a community support group during the pandemic.
She says her focus for the year will be Accessibility and Disability.
Councillor Pru Maskell, Vice-Chair of Devon County Council, said:
: “As a deaf person myself the pandemic really brought home to me how difficult life could be with face masks and social distancing.
“My mother-in-law spent the last four months of her life in a wheelchair, and it really opened my eyes to the everyday obstacles which disabled people face.”
In 2021 she became part of a group called Access for All, set up by a friend who has a disabled child and their mission since then has been to make the beaches in North Devon accessible to everyone.
She helped secure government funding for a Changing Places Facility at Croyde Beach and they are now building up a supply of beach wheelchairs with other beaches now joining the scheme.
She added: “I was delighted to be nominated for the Vice Chair role by Cllr Andrea Davis and I look forward to working alongside John Hart who has done so much for this Council as Leader for the past 15 years. It is a real honour.”
Councillor James McInnes, the Cabinet member adult social care and health, is the new Leader of the council.
The Adult and Social Care Portfolio will be taken on by Councillor Phil Bullivant.