Former Trowbridge Tory mayor David Cavill joins Lib Dems

Cllr David Cavill was welcomed into the South West Wiltshire Lib Dem Group by the town council’s leader Cllr Stewart Palmen, who said: “We would like to welcome a new councillor to the Lib Dem group.

“David Cavill is a former mayor of Trowbridge and has been working to make Trowbridge better as a councillor for sometime.

“He was instrumental in setting up and running the very successful Celebrating Trowbridge event in 2019.”

Alongside two other town councillors, Peter Fuller and Diana King, Mr Cavill resigned from the local Tory Group last July to sit as Independent councillors after they objected to the Conservative Group’s leader Cllr Antonio Piazza's "misleading" public statements and "unwarranted" criticism of council staff and other councillors.

Within a few days they were reported to the South West Wiltshire Conservative Association and were suspended and later expelled from the party’s membership by its executive.

Following a successful appeal by the three conservative councillors against SWWCA’s decision to expel them, Mr Cavill has decided to join the Liberal Democrats.

Mr Cavill, 78, said: “I am not ambitious for political power but I like to bring forward ideas and suggestions to the decision making process and this extraordinarily badly handled issue by SWWCA has permanently damaged my confidence in the Conservative Party.

“Added to this, although I accept and will work with the result of the Brexit vote, I was always a committed European and have concluded that I will feel more comfortable elsewhere.

“I want to continue to help develop the environment of Trowbridge, Wiltshire and the well-being of its residents so I have taken the decision to formally join my friends in the Liberal Democrats.

“I have always tried to work effectively with all my fellow councillors and I will continue to do so.”

Mr Cavill, who represents Paxcroft Ward, said the disciplinary sub-committee of the Board of the Conservative Party had found the trio were entitled to become a separate group on the council and that SWWCA’s procedure was flawed, the conclusions reached were wrong, and the sanctions disproportionately harsh.

Cllrs Fuller and King are still sitting as Independents. It is understood that Cllr Fuller intends to stand down from Wiltshire Council at the next local elections, but will fight to retain his town council seat, while Cllr King intends to stand down from the town council.

Cllr Piazza said: "I’m disappointing to see Cllr David Cavill make these accusations about me.

"Both Cllr David Cavill and Cllr Diana King submitted formal complaints to the Wiltshire Council Monitoring Officer about me and claimed that I had made misleading statements in the past.

"They failed to provide sufficient evidence of this and, in similar fashion, Cllr Cavill’s blog also provides no evidence of me making any misleading statements.

"Both formal complaints were dismissed by the independent monitoring officer at Wiltshire Council.

"The Trowbridge town clerk had also submitted a complaint on similar terms, claiming that I had been overly critical of the council’s finances and debt.

"The Standards Committee, again, dismissed this complaint stating that I had been engaged in political activity – in short, I’m trying to do my job as an elected councillor. This complaint again was dismissed.

"Since being elected onto the council back in January 2020, I’ve suffered multiple vexatious complaints of this nature. These have amounted to 48 hours of officer time, which hasn’t come cheap to the taxpayer.

"I’m ultimately here to represent my residents and I’ll always put them first. I’m never going to stop doing that. I’m reassured by residents who tell me that Cllr Graham Payne was no stranger to receiving vexatious complaints such as this though.

"It proves that I’m on the right track – it means I’ve stood up for something in my short time as councillor since my by-election and if it means upsetting the apple cart but doing the right thing, so be it."