MINEHEAD’s mayor Cllr Norman Hercock this week quit the town council’s ruling Conservative group and joined the opposition as an independent.

And he pledged to resist any efforts by Conservative councillors to remove him as mayor, saying that he had already been threatened with a vote of no confidence.

A lifelong Conservative, and still a member of the national party, Cllr Hercock has now severed all links with the council’s Conservative group.

In an exclusive interview with the Free Press, Cllr Hercock said: “I’ve always believed that there should be no party politics in local government at this level, and when certain people tried to manipulate and bully me into working in a political manner I decided I had had enough.

“I believe in the truth and now we are coming across things that we are trying to find answers to. There are a lot of things which need to be put right.

“It hasn’t been easy from the start -you don’t get training to be a mayor – and you’re the leader of the council, not just a figurehead.

“You’ve got to make the council work as a team. Some people still believe the council should be run on political lines but I’m against that.”

Matters came to a head in July when Cllr Hercock, Conservative councillor for Alcombe and mayor since May, voted for an opposition amendment urging the council not to approve a statement to the auditors claiming that it had acted with good governance.

“Some councillors were unsure about ticking the ’yes’ box but it was only on the evening of the meeting that further information was found to make us believe that we should tick ’no’ on that box rather than ’yes’.”

Cllr Hercock said he was called to a meeting at the Kildare Lodge Hotel, Minehead, which was attended by local MP Ian Liddell-Grainger and town councillors Jean and Andrew Parbrook, Gail Everett,Ralph Dinnick,Roger Thomas and Gary Miele.

“They were not very happy with me. They wanted to know why I did what I did and I told them that my conscience made me vote the way I did.

“I will continue as mayor, regardless of any threats, because I believe in what I am doing at the moment and I have spoken to loads of members of the public and they are fully behind what I am doing.

“People are at last getting answers to their questions – all they want is the truth.”

Full report in tomorrow’s Free Press (August 3)