THE new mayor of Southampton will take up the chains of office today with a plan to launch coming of age ceremonies.

Liberal Democrat councillor Liz Mizon, who will become the city’s 787th mayor, said she wanted to give 18-year-olds an opportunity to celebrate their “biggest right of passage”.

She hopes the ceremonies will also help instil a sense of citizenship, although she said the details had yet to be worked out.

Cllr Mizon, a former teacher and some-time travel writer, said she will use her role to strengthen communities within the city and encourage residents to be a “good neighbour”.

And in a split with tradition she will appoint the council’s first nonreligious “chaplain” for the year.

On her appointment of a retired humanist celebrant David Bothwell, she said: “We need to speak about the values of community, not just to people of faith but to everybody.”

Humanists seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs.

Cllr Mizon first came to Southampton from Lancashire in 1967 as a teacher at Weston Park Junior School.