Kent County Councillor Trevor Shonk has quit the Conservative Party to join the Thanet Independents Group.
Cllr Shonk was elected to the county council as a Ramsgate representative on a Tory ticket in 2021.
The former Ramsgate mayor had been a member of UKIP prior to joining the Conservatives.
Last November he and fellow Conservative county councillor Linda Wright were suspended from the Tories for defying a party line on housing policy.
At the time defiant Cllr Shonk said he wouldn’t “grovel” to be accepted back into the Tory fold.
Both members had sided with a Green Party motion on KCC’s policy regarding developer money put towards community improvement, known as section 106 contributions, as part of planning permissions.
The Tory group had voted to oppose the motion in advance of full council but Cllrs Wright and Shonk had decided to go against the party line.
Now Cllr Shonk has quit the party, voicing his disappointed over leadership and the building on farmland.
He said: “We are in a dire situation at KCC. We need more transparency and more scrutiny. The leadership at KCC just doesn’t listen to backbenchers, especially backbenchers from Thanet.
“I can’t just stand by and watch our farmland disappear forever. Like many voters across Kent, I feel the Conservative Party has let our farmers down, especially here in Thanet.
“Local residents trusted us to protect the farmland. But despite all the rhetoric from senior politicians it just hasn’t happened. People are fed up with “concrete , concrete, concrete.”
“In spite of the establishment trying to stop them, Thanet Independents are the only effective opposition to TDCs Labour leadership, who have singled out Jonathan Tapp’s farmland for non-farming purposes. So they need the support of like-minded councillors. I look forward to working with John Worrow and his team.”
Thanet Independents leader John Worrow said: “I am delighted to welcome Trevor Shonk to Thanet Independents. I have known Trevor for many years and I have always admired his independent minded approach towards local politics.
“I understand his disappointment with the Conservative leadership at KCC, whose housing policy is just as detrimental to our farmland as the approach taken by Thanet District Council’s Labour leadership.”
Thanet Independents have three members at Thanet District Council after the rest of the party’s remaining members were wiped out at last year’s election.
