DAVID Munro, county councillor for Farnham South and borough councillor for Farnham Shortheath and Boundstone, handed in his resignation as a local councillor last Thursday.

His departure fulfilled a long-standing campaign pledge that, if elected as Surrey’s Police and Crime Commissioner in May, he would step down as a local councillor, and was delayed so as not to “get tangled up” with the EU referendum.

Mr Munro was first elected to Waverley in May 2005 and to Surrey in 2007 and he has been an elected councillor ever since.

He held senior council posts both at Surrey County Council and Waverley Borough Council, including executive member at county for adult social services, environment and transport and at Waverley chairman of the then-leisure committee and the communities portfolio.

His last important post was as chairman of Surrey County Council for two years between 2013 and 2015.

He has fought 12 local and county elections, losing only one to the Liberal Democrats at Waverley in 2007, when he unsuccessfully opposed that party’s schemes for the Brightwells development.

Mr Munro said: “After 21 years representing Farnham residents to the best of my ability it’s time to call it a day and give someone else a chance. As a through-and-through Conservative I hope of course that my successors at county and borough will also be Tories, but I wish whoever is elected the very best of luck, and hope that they will have as good a time as I have had.

“I am really grateful to the hundreds of residents in Farnham who have supported me, constructively criticised or been a thorough nuisance - all have made my job interesting and kept me up to the mark.”

By-elections are now expected to take place later this summer to appoint Mr Munro’s successor(s) at borough and county level, as well as town and borough councillor Paddy Blagden’s successor(s) in the Farnham Castle ward after his recent resignation on health grounds.

The first step in this process requires Waverley’s returning officer to publish a notice of vacancy, after which a by-election will be called if the required number of electors (10 each for the borough and county, and two for the town) call for an election.