NEW chief executive Tim Howes was this week looking forward to the challenge of leading West Somerset District Council.

Mr Howes, aged 39, will join the authority in April or May, ready to take over from Colin Rockall, aged 55, whose five-year contract expires in July.

He was chosen last week by an "overwhelming majority" of councillors at a full council meeting held to interview two candidates selected from an original shortlist of six.

Mr Howes and his wife Claire will move from Thurlaston, Leicestershire, with their three children.

The family knew the West Somerset area well, as Mr Howes previously spent four years with district councils in neighbouring Sedgemoor and North Devon.

Mr Howes told the Free Press: "I have spent most of my career in the South West, so it is like coming back home for me."

He said a chief executive's role was a natural next move in his 13-year local government career after being a strategic director for Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council, in Leicestershire.

His present role saw him in charge of more than 150 staff and all of his authority's property, including 3,700 council homes and a leisure centre.

Mr Howes, a solicitor, said: "It is a good time to become a chief executive under the Government's modernising agenda.

"It is quite an exciting time to become a chief executive - and the location has to be a big attraction.

"Managing change is one of my strengths and something I enjoy."

Mr Howes said he would visit West Somerset regularly to meet people and look for somewhere to live before he took up his new post.