WOOTTON Bassett's new mayor knows all about the important help carers can provide.

That is why Marion Sweet decided Carers Support North Wiltshire would become her adopted charity after seeing carers help her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer's.

Carers have also been important in helping her father, who suffers from vascular dementia, and grand niece, who the family believe may have cerebral palsy.

Fighting back tears at the annual mayor making ceremony at the Civic Offices in Wootton Bassett, Marion, 52, told friends, family and council colleagues, that carers were the unsung heroes of society.

She said: "My father cared for my mother 24 hours a day, but the family can only do so much.

"These people are not recognised and really are the unsung heroes of the community, trying to help many families across the area.

"Illness can strike any family at any time and that's the hardest thing to see.

"Carers are there to assist 60 minutes of every hour, 24 hours a day."

Marion, who works as a programme adviser for the Learning and Skills Council, said her aim was to make Wootton Bassett an enjoyable place in which to live and work, while encouraging trade and business to locate in the town.

"I will be working with businesses to try to bring investment to the town, raise its profile and make it an enjoyable place to live," she said.

"I'd like to build opportunities for business so that we encourage them into the town and that they stay here,

"But that's not going to happen overnight, or in a year, but hopefully I can make a start.

"It's a huge task but I feel I should give business every opportunity to come here and stay."

In his speech, outgoing mayor Peter Roberts identified the low points of his year in office as the closure of the town's St Ivel factory and a "painful" budget setting process.

He did, however, manage to raise £3,929.01 for his nominated charity, Burton Hill School in Malmesbury, which saw him wing walk on a Tigermoth and being thrown into a swimming pool by former newspaper magnate Eddie Shah.

Also at the ceremony, Tom Lloyd was appointed deputy mayor, Fred Ferris was appointed town crier and Owen Collier was appointed deputy town crier.