THE Whitehill & Bordon Community Party has elected Roger Russell as its group leader on Whitehill Town Council.

This new party, launched by a former town-council leader, has vowed to bring a “political earthquake” to Bordon. Andy Tree created the group to, he said, “sweep aside national party politics” from the council and to instead focus on the concerns of residents.

However, as Mr Tree is not a councillor himself, Mr Russell will, in a sense, act as opposition leader on the council against the Conservatives - the majority party.

The new party has taken three of the 13 sitting town councillors under its wing.

Mr Russell, Duncan Sanders and Leeroy Scott have left the Liberal Democrats to join the party.

“I look forward to putting forward our party’s positive proposals at Whitehill Town Council,” Mr Russell said.

“We will show there can be a credible, local-community-led alternative to national-party politics.

“We must get a proper town centre as part of the development. In particular, I want to: achieve something for the young people of Whitehill and Bordon and get all age groups involved in decision making; to improve public transport, in particular rail links, and improve community cohesion.

“I was very sad to see the skatepark closed early due to alleged vandalism and hope to see the new one open in July to schedule.”

The party’s overall leader Mr Tree added: “As a professional organisation, we have quickly created an effective leadership structure.

“Now this is in place, we can move forward in implementing our plans and put forward our proposals for the betterment of Whitehill and Bordon.”

Having previously spoken out about defections to other parties, Mr Tree said: “Residents are right to be concerned that councillors on all levels appear to frequently jump ship from one national party to another. This is even more extraordinary when it is from Liberal Democrat to Conservative, when those two parties have a totally different set of beliefs and policies, potentially leaving voters on all sides perplexed about what values these councillors actually stand for.

“For the avoidance of any doubt, I have not changed my national-political views and to be very clear nobody has had to defect from supporting the national party of their choice to join the Whitehill & Bordon Community Party. Our elected councillors can speak from an independent platform where policies and views are dictated by our members and residents, not national-party whips.”

But Conservative council leader Mark Davison said party politics was already “negated” on the council and that he welcomed good ideas no matter where they came from.

He added that, regardless of party, all councillors were already working well together “for the benefit of the town and residents”.