Western Bay of Plenty’s final local election results have been declared.

James Denyer’s lead extended, and he has officially been re-elected as mayor for the 2025-2028 electoral term.

Results show Denyer received 4424 votes, ahead of Margaret Murray-Benge with 2737 votes and Rodney Joyce, who received 1890 votes, a council statement said.

The updated results, released today , show no changes to the mayoralty, councillor, or community board positions from the preliminary results.

Voter return was 38.06%, being 15,301 votes, including special votes, which have now been validated and counted.

Return from the 2022 election was 37.6%.

Darlene Dinsdale will be the district’s first Maōri ward councillor.

Final results show 8462 votes to remove the Māori ward after the 2025-2028 triennium versus 5892 votes to keep the Māori ward.

Allan Sole and Rodney Joyce have been re-elected as Katikati-Waihī Beach Ward councillors.

Newcomer Graeme Elvin will join current councillors Margaret Murray-Benge and Tracey Coxhead in the Kaimai ward.

Margaret Murray-Benge was runner-up for mayor and re-elected to the Kaimai Ward.

In the Maketu-Te Puke ward, Grant Dally and Laura Rae have been re-elected.

First-time councillor Shane Beech will take the third Maketu-Te Puke seat; he had to pull out of the 2022 election at the last minute for health reasons.

The new council will be sworn in on November 5.

Denyer has not said who he plans to make deputy mayor, telling Local Democracy Reporting on Sunday that he was thinking about it and planned to sit down with each councillor in the coming days.

It will also be the first term under new governance arrangements, with a mayor and nine councillors. Previously, there were 11 councillors.