I went to school near Radstock and spent 12 years in the Army serving in 16th/5th The Queen’s Royal Lancers from 1983 to 1994.

Full statement

I left the Army and completed a BSc in Environment Management at Cranfield University and started a career where for the last 30 years, I have stretched the envelope developing environmental solutions to industrial problems.

I arrived back in Somerset in 1997 and got married and moved to Wellington in 2004. My wife is a GP and we have three children.

I was a student Union President in 1995 and have campaigned ever since standing for local government and fighting Bristol North West in 2001.

Over the last 20 years I have seen degradation of our society to what is now a crisis of economics, health, housing and crime. Successive governments have failed us.

The residents of Taunton and Wellington deserve better, they deserve to get better value for their taxes. Many of these local issues are driven by national policy, mass immigration and the cost of our obsessive net zero at all cost ideology.

I'm standing for Reform UK because I have had enough of the mediocre representation we have received over the last few decades that has led us to where we are today.

If you are fed up too, get involved, join us, volunteer and help us campaign.