TAMWORTH has voted in three new faces to council at the expense of its two most experienced representatives.
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NSW Electoral Commission officials distributed preferences on the Tamworth Regional Council ballot on Friday afternoon, and the region has chosen some fresh, but familiar, faces.
Mark Rodda, Russell Webb and Col Murray retained their spots, while Helen Tickle, Phil Betts and Juanita Wilson all made it home on preferences.
Former TRC and Parry Shire general manager Glenn Inglis is preparing for his first stint as a councillor, former Manilla Shire mayor Jim Maxwell was elected in eighth spot, and fresh-faced Charles Impey will join the council as its youngest member, picking up the ninth spot.
The election of the nine councillors was officially declared late on Saturday afternoon with no recounts requested from candidates or the electoral commissioner.
The election of three new councillors brings down the curtain on the long council careers of former Tamworth mayors Warren Woodley and James Treloar.
Mr Woodley was first elected in 1965 and served 38 years on council, including 36 consecutive years from 1980 until the present.
Mr Treloar was first elected to Tamworth City Council in 1987. He was first elected deputy mayor in 1989 and chosen as mayor in 1995.
Mr Treloar served a total of14 years as mayor in Tamworth and was also appointed as administrator of the amalgamated Tamworth Regional Council in 2004.
Tamworth’s voting population has grown by over 3000 since the last election in 2012.
However, the formal vote tally only grew by 1028 and the informal tally grew by over 2 per cent to 7.7 per cent.
Back in 2012, there were 1897 informal votes registered in the election, a figure outstripped by the 2016 count.
Just 83.53 per cent of enrolled voters in the Tamworth Regional Council area submitted a vote for the 2016 election, showing a sliding trend in voter participation for the local government area in the most recent elections.
The participation rate in Tamworth for the 2012 election was 85.37 per cent.
The informal vote rate for the Tamworth Regional Council election was also higher than the New England tally from the July 2 federal election.
The New England count, which took in 102,200 votes, saw a marginally lower informal rat of 7.04 per cent.
The informal vote tally of 7196 in the New England election was the third-highest primary total in the ballot.
In the neighbouring shires, five new members were voted on to Walcha council, with Rachael Wellings, Peter Blomfield, Eric Noakes, Jen Kealey and Scott Kermode joining Clint Lyon, Bill Heazlett and Kevin Ferrier on a new look team.
Uralla welcomed Robert Bell, Tara Toomey and Levi Sampson to council with Kevin Ward, Isabel Strutt, Bob Crouch, Natasha Ledger and Mark Dusting earning another term, along with popularly elected mayor Michael Pearce.