AN independent election candidate hopes to pick up votes from Gerrards Cross residents unhappy about the de-selection of the sitting Conservative councillor.

Chris Brown said one of the reasons he was standing was in protest at the removal of Peter Roberts, who has represented Gerrards Cross and Denham North since 2001.

He is one of three independent candidates out of more than 130 people hoping to win seats on Tory-run Buckinghamshire County Council next Thursday.

Another is hoping to topple a top Conservative in The Chalfonts and Seer Green, partly over their backing of a mooted incinerator nearby.

Mr Brown said: “What happened to Peter was disgraceful. He was a hard working councillor and there was no reason to de-select him.”

The move was “political” he suggested as replacement Roger Reed is deputy leader of South Bucks District Council.

District council leader Adrian Busby has also been selected to stand after another sitting Tory member, Margaret Dewar in Beaconsfield, was de-selected (see link, below).

Mr Brown, who said he also wanted to stand to fight for roads and education, said: “There was so much unhappiness about it – people came to me and asked me to stand.”

The other candidate in the ward is John Fagan for the UK Independence Party. The Liberal Democrats were not able to find to a suitable candidate.

At the last election Mr Roberts for 63.3 per cent of the vote compared to the Lib Dem's 22.9 per cent and Labour's 13.5 per cent.

Yet James Dunville, agent for Beaconsfield Conservatives, hit back and said a councillor’s term is “not for life”.

He said he could not comment on the reasons as the selection committee held a secret ballot but it was a “fair competition”.

Accusations the vote was “political” were not true, he said. “Each is a separate individual case. There is no overall grand plan or strategy or plot.”

Meanwhile, Chalfont and Seer Green independent hopeful Graham Smith is partly campaigning on the incinerator plan for Wapseys Wood, rejected by the council last year.

Calling a public consultation on the plans a “sham” he is urging voters to throw out sitting ward member Martin Tett, cabinet member for strategic planning, who backed the incinerator.

Writing in tomorrow’s Bucks Free Press Mr Smith said: “You can remove him and his health endangering waste strategy with a vote for me.”

Yet Cllr Tett told Bucks Free Press the plan was for north Bucks and Bedforshire. “There is currently no proposal the county has for a household incinerator in south Buckinghamshire.”

And he said advice to the council showed a “negligible health risk”.

Amersham councillor David Meacock has also been de-selected. He said: “I am looking to the future.

“I would ask people to look at the age of the relevant candidates. Some of them strike me as a bit on the old side.”

De-selected Frank Sweatman, for Marlow, said: “I wasn’t a bit worried, there was no issue about it. I am getting on a bit.”

Conservatives Pam Bacon, Hugh Wilson, Francis Robinson, Dennis Green and Liberal Democrat Patricia Lindsley are retiring.