THE county councillor who has represented Redhill for eight years has been deselected – twice.
Lynne Hack's Redhill seat will disappear in May in a major overhaul of electoral boundaries across the county. Reigate and Banstead currently has nine seats on the county council, but that will become ten as boundaries are redrawn.
The existing division of Redhill will be split, and form parts of two new wards. However, Dr Hack was not selected to stand in either of them.
The Mirror understands Dr Hack, who is also a borough councillor for Banstead Village, complained to the Reigate and Banstead Conservative Association about the way the initial selection decision was made and her appeal was upheld. But when she was re-interviewed, she was again snubbed by her fellow Tories in favour of other candidates.
Julian Ellacott, deputy chairman of the association, declined to comment on the reason for the appeal.
"I can't go into details," he said. "It is resolved now. It was appealed so the process was re-run. It was literally because of a technicality in the rules about how the interview should be conducted and who should be on the interview panel."
Dr Hack was not selected due to geography, he said.
"It was all bound up in the boundary changes – everything was up in the air, plus, she lives in Banstead so Redhill wasn't necessarily a natural fit, so we went through our selection process and have candidates who live in the Redhill area instead."
Dr Hack declined to comment on the circumstances, but confirmed she will vie for a seat in a different county council division – Dorking Hills in Mole Valley – when all of Surrey's county council seats are contested in elections in ten weeks' time.
"It is a very complicated process," she said. "I don't want to discuss anything to do with the way candidates are or aren't chosen.
"I don't want to stay in Redhill," she added. "I have done eight years so it is time for a change. It has been interesting. It is a main town, so it had completely different issues [to those of rural Dorking Hills] but I am more of a country girl really."
She said another reason for her move is that she will be borough mayor from May, adding: "As mayor you tend not to be political so it is easier for me to stand [for county council] somewhere else."
Aside from Angela Fraser (Banstead East), the Mirror understands all Reigate and Banstead's sitting county councillors are standing in the election. Candidates for all parties will be confirmed at the end of March. The poll is on May 2.
