TEST Valley borough councillor Stephan Bolton is to quit the authority at the next election, next year.

His announcement comes after Tory members threw the representative of Chilworth and Nursling out of their group for not showing up to party meetings.

But Mr Bolton, 33, claims he was never a paid-up member anyway and was leaving public life because he could not see a place for himself in the new cabinet-style council organisation.

He said the former committee system meant councillors could make decisions. "Now that's all gone, there's ten members and they're on an executive committee.

"At this sort of level I don't think there's a place for national politics and could actually, I think, be more destructive than constructive," he said.

Mr Bolton, who works full-time as an IT manager, was elected in 1997 as a Conserv-ative candidate but said it was on his terms. "They approached me before the last election and said would I stand as a Conservative and I said as long as I remain independent and stand for the residents but now that it's become political they're not happy with that."

Ian Carr, leader of both the council and the Tory group, said: "The last time I spoke to him he said he would come to the meeting but he didn't.

"We even moved the meeting down to Romsey. People just got fed up with not seeing him and him not turning up to meetings and we're sick of covering for him."

Mr Carr said it would not affect the power balance. "That brings it down to 27 Conservatives, three independents, if that's what he's going to be, and 14 Lib Dems."