A county and district councillor publicly backed Steve Tierney late this afternoon to win the leadership battle for Fenland Council tonight.

Cllr Dave Connor, returned unopposed last week as the Tory councillor for Doddington and Wimblington, said: “Why would any councillor want to vote for car park charges when it is absolutely imperative we support our towns not destroy them.”

Cllr Connor said the car park charge proposals – outlined exclusively to me in one of two interviews this week with leadership candidate John Clark- would sound the death knell for the four Fenland towns.

He said he was also totally opposed to another idea suggested by Cllr Clark of charging for brown bins.

“Why would any councillor want to agree to make our hard up constituents pay for their brown bin to be emptied?” said Cllr Connor.

“Besides it will only lead to more fly tipping and more chances for our beautiful countryside to be spoilt.

“It is my view that in the long run Fenland Council would have to pay more simply to clear the additional mess”.

And he said he fully supported Cllr Tierney’s “principled” stand against these issues and would be voting for him tonight.