Geoff Driver: Lancashire County Council leader to resign

Geoff Driver has been involved in politics in Lancashire for almost 60 years

Veteran council leader Geoff Driver has announced he is to step down and will not contest the May local elections.

The 76-year-old Conservative has led Lancashire County Council between 2009-2013 and since 2017.

In recent years his tenure has been marked by controversy, including a claim of witness intimidation in a fraud probe.

He said: "I'm not getting any younger, and if you stand for the county council, you stand for four years."

Mr Driver has been associated with local politics for almost 60 years, beginning with a tenure as trainee treasurer at Rawtenstall Town Hall after leaving school.

After spells at councils in Salford, Coventry, Kirklees and Plymouth he returned to his native Lancashire as chief executive of Preston Borough Council in 1993.

He retired after four years but two neighbours who were Conservative councillors encouraged him to return to local politics.

'Huge honour'

He has led the county's Conservative group since 2008.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, he said his CBE in 2013 was "a huge honour".

"I would never suggest that being in local government is a vocation like being a doctor or a nurse, but it is different from going into the private sector because you just feel that you want to serve your fellow citizens," he said.

"We might have our differences - usually not so much over what we do but how we go about doing it - but everybody wants to serve the people who elected them."

Analysis

By Mike Stevens, BBC Radio Lancashire political reporter

After six decades working in local government finance, councillor Driver has always had a fixation with balancing the books.

Given his background, he is particularly proud of the work he's done around the county council's budget over the past four years.

When the Conservatives took over running the authority in 2017, it was facing a deficit of £200m and was expected to rely on reserves.

Despite the uncertainty of a global pandemic and a council tax rise of 4% this year, councillor Driver now says the authority's finances have a "generally positive outlook".

He puts it all down it to his administration's "careful planning" and says the council now has more money to spend on services like highways, flood defences and cycle schemes.

Mr Driver's career has also featured some controversy.

In 2018, High Court documents revealed he had been accused of sending emails deliberately designed to "intimidate, belittle and undermine" witnesses in an investigation into a £5m contract deal.

Mr Driver said he had done nothing wrong.

During his current period as leader, there were complaints about various councillors using threatening or bullying language in some council meetings, which was "which was "stifling debate".

In 2020, Labour county councillor Julia Berry said: "There is a lot of intimidation, name-calling and chanting. It's appalling."

Mr Driver accepted the incidents "shouldn't happen".