Painful start for new chairman
The new chairman of Newark and Sherwood District Council was unanimously elected in his absence on Tuesday because he was at home with shingles.
Conservative Mr Gordon Brooks (65) of Russell Avenue, Balderton, became ill last week and has been told he must rest for at least seven days.
It means he will miss his first week’s engagements, including Newark and Nottinghamshire County Show tomorrow.
Mr Brooks was born at Cotham and educated at Barnby Road School.
He started work at 15 as an apprentice engineer with Worthington Simpson, Balderton, retiring after 48 years in December 2006, when he was chief inspector of MoD contracts.
His interest in politics started when he was 15 and joined the Young Conservatives for a brief period.
His first project as a Young Conservative was to instigate the cleaning up of Balderton Lake, which was rat infested because of out-of-date food being dumped there, and with the help of the Advertiser he managed to get it tidied up.
He served for 18 years on Balderton Parish Council before stepping down at the 2007 elections.
He was elected again last week.
Mr Brooks is also the chairman of Balderton Scouts, a past chairman of Newark Macmillan Cancer Relief Committee, treasurer of Balderton Resource Centre, a trustee of Balderton Parochial Charity and a volunteer with Balderton Police Point.
He and his wife, Mrs Betty Brooks, who is also a district and parish councillor, have been married for 41 years.
The couple have two children, Miss Claire Brooks (33) who is the head of geography at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Horncastle, and Mr Guy Brooks (29) a marketing manager for Enterprise vehicle hire.
The new vice-chairman is retired businessman Mr Bryan Richardson (Con) of Sherwood Avenue, Newark.
Mr Richardson is currently the Mayor of Newark but that term of office ends on Sunday.
The nomination was supported by all the council apart from the Independents.
Their group leader, Mrs Gill Dawn, said they would abstain.
She felt Mr Richardson had served the town well with a year firstly as deputy mayor and then as mayor and somebody else should take a turn as the vice-chairman of the council.
