'Inexperienced' councillor chosen to lead council

A self-described "inexperienced councillor" has been elected to lead a Gloucestershire council.

Green Party councillor Adrian Birch, was elected to represent Tidenham in May and less than 12 months later has the top job at Forest of Dean District Council.

He was elected by 25 fellow councillors after being recommended by the outgoing leader Mark Topping, who announced his resignation last week.

Mr Birch told the full council meeting he was humbled and honoured by the trust the council had placed in an "inexperienced councillor".

He said he hoped to confound his critics and had been inspired by his predecessor’s leadership and kind support.

He also thanked senior councillors and officers for their work and said he would set out his vision for the Forest of Dean later this year.

The work on the local plan, the council’s blueprint for development in the district, was “a good example of good party working in recent weeks”, he said.

He also told the meeting he wanted to tackle a £2.9m shortfall in funding inherited from the last council, but warned that would require “tough decisions”.

Another of his aspirations is to see more use of energy efficient Passivhaus homes used for social housing.

Following a short service commission in the Royal Navy, Mr Birch studied building surveying at Thames Polytechnic.

He worked for various architect and surveying firms for 10 years in London before relocating to Brockweir with his family in 1984. His children attended Tutshill School and Wyedean.

Mr Birch held senior roles in two firms in Bristol before setting up his own practice in 1990, eventually retiring in 2022.

During this time, he was a senior lecturer at the University of the West of England until 2013 and a board member of Two Rivers Housing from 2009 to 2018.

In 2015 he joined the Green Party, which said he had been an active campaigner ever since.

Mr Birch said he wanted to "encourage thriving, happier and healthier communities for all sorts of reasons, knowing that only together will we be able to face an uncertain future".

Some 25 councillors voted for Mr Birch to be leader and he received the backing of Labour, Liberal Democrat and independent councillors as well as his own group.

Conservative councillor Harry Ives proposed Nick Evans to be leader but he only received five votes from the Tories and the Progressive Independents.