Paul has lived in Wokingham Borough for over thirty years while running his own specialised Public Relations business from home. Now semi-retired, he feels he has the bandwidth available to contribute to the borough. Having worked for the former Rural Development Commission, he gained several years of experience in providing business support for villages and rural communities – of which Wokingham has many – and for addressing the particular social problems that they encounter. He is also keen to encourage and help Wokingham boost its support for the arts as they can define the life and well-being of a community as a whole.

“To be fair, although problems do exist there’s not too much wrong with Wokingham as it is” he said. “But communities are not preserved in aspic so we have to accept some change. Yet we must ensure that any changes do not occur to the detriment of the people of already living there. Occasionally, my wife and I get itchy feet and look at moving to another part of the country but we now realise that we never will. Wokingham suits us in so many ways and we now accept that there’s nowhere better.”