Coventry’s new Lord Mayor Joan Wright took office yesterday and urged the people of Coventry to start being more positive about the city.

Councillor Wright has been in politics for 13 years, serving on various different boards and associations including the Action Against Crime Committee, and she believes Coventry is misrepresented.

She said:

"One of my major goals while I am the mayor is to get people to stop focusing on the negatives of the city and start talking about all the good things that happen here.

"If you listened to some of the publicity that Coventry gets you would think that it was an unsafe place but I know from my experience with different organisations that this is simply not true.

"I want the people of Coventry to be proud of their city and get involved with the projects that are being put into place to make it a brighter place, I want people to start talking Coventry up."

The new Lord Mayor is also encouraging the city to pay more attention to the needs of its young people.

"We need to start appreciating the youngster and what they do for the city," she said.

"For instance the City of Coventry Drum Corps is made up of 70 young men who represent us all over the world, but the irony is that they are probably known better outside the city than they are here.

"The corps is one of my chosen charities for the year because they are in desperate need of fund-raising to buy a coach to transport them to the event they are performing at."

Councillor Wright’s other charities for the year will be the Alzheimer’s Disease Charity and Association for Brain-damaged children and she hopes these will be well supported.

She said:

"I want to raise as much as the last mayor and hopefully more. I will be running some of my own events as well as the normal ones that are organised."