A NEW face has joined Trowbridge Town Council after a by-election was held last Thursday.

Liberal Democrat Chris Hoar won the Central ward seat with 428 votes. Trevor Porter, Conservative came in second place with 247 votes and Liz Gifford, Labour had 130 votes. The result means the party now have political control of the council.

Cllr Hoar said: “It was amazing to win the by-election, I’ve never done anything like this before so it really was great.

“It is nice to know that other people are concerned about the same issues as me, so that really energised me.

“Hopefully my ideas will be easier to push through now the council is led by Lib Dems.

“I have been a Lib Dem member for a long time now, and it is great to be a part of.”

Cllr Hoar already has several ideas of how he wants to make a difference in the town.

He said: “There are three main reasons as to why I wanted to become a town councillor.

“The first one was that I wanted to push Trowbridge Town Council to become carbon neutral because you’ve got Parliament declaring a climate emergency and Wiltshire Council doing the same but they are just words, they are not actually actions.”

As a Newtown resident, Cllr Hoar also feels strongly about parking problems in the area.

He added: “I thought I would try and do something about it and push for some traffic calming measures. It is quite dangerous along there.

“Speaking to local residents it seems to be an issue through the whole of the ward, so I think the whole area needs to be looked at.” The keen amateur musician also hopes to bring more live music to help revitalisethe town centre.

With a strong interest in music and entertainment, Cllr Hoar also wants to see the arts brought to life in the town centre.

“I am an amateur musician and I would like to see this brought in to regenerate the town centre as some way of bringing more entertainment and more things like that which will bring people in from out of town.”