The Devizes Guardians

The new Guardians Councillor for the Devizes East Ward is Roger Giraud-Saunders.  We now have two Guardian Councillors in that Ward (the other is Jane Burton) and five Guardians on the Town Council.

Roger received 308 votes, the Conservative candidate 261 votes, Labour 186 votes and Lib. Dem. 122 votes. Although the turn out was low (only 20.17%) it was a convincing margin.

Roger is sixty-two years old and lives in Devizes with his wife Nina. He attended school in north London and at the age of fifteen joined the Royal Navy, serving fifteen years in the Marine Engineering branch. After losing his right arm in an industrial accident he studied for a Higher National Diploma in Agricultural Engineering, which led to his present work for the Oil Advisory Technical Services based in Swindon.

He feels strongly that Devizes has been ill served by the major parties and, as a Devizes Guardian, he will be able to make a worthwhile contribution to the town in a way that the other parties have not. He has seen the town overwhelmed with new developments carried out with little regard to the impact on the local environment and infrastructure. He will support the other elected Guardians in giving greater consideration to the needs of Devizes and its people.

A personal statement from Roger -

“Local representation on local issues, free from interference at a national level, is important for communities such as Devizes. Now that I have been elected as a Guardians town councillor I will continue to press for solutions to local issues that are important to the community I serve, without being subject to the party line that influences the representatives of the major parties.”