County Council Leader Is Now Councils Network Leader Too

Published on: 1 Jul, 2013
Updated on: 3 Jul, 2013

Cllr David Hodge canvassing with Home Secretary Theresa May during the recent county council elections

Surrey Leader David Hodge has been elected leader of the Conservative Group on the County Councils Network (CCN).

He will now go forward as the Conservative Group nomination for the chairman of the CCN at its AGM in September to replace the outgoing Chairman, Cllr Robert Gordon of Hertfordshire County Council.

The network represents 36 English local authorities that serve counties. Membership includes both upper tier and unitary authorities who together have over 2,500 councillors and serve 23 million people, almost half of the country’s population, across 85% of England. CCN develops policy, shares best practice and makes representations to government on behalf of this very significant proportion of the country outside the big conurbations.

A press release from the SCC Conservative Group states: “Having the Surrey leader in this key role comes after Surrey was named ‘Council of the Year’ at the Improvement and Efficiency Awards and was the only conservative council in the country to increase its number of seats at the local elections in May.

David said: ‘I feel privileged to be elected as the Leader of the Conservative Group of a body that promotes the interests of such a large number of councils and residents.’