In early August Paul came over to Barrow from his home village of Quorn to tell me about himself and his life as a newly elected Leicestershire County Councillor. Paul won the seat in May 2025 for the Reform party and is now one of 55 councillors who meet six times a year in Leicester’s County Hall to decide how to spend a budget of £600 million.

As I’m sure most readers will know, Barrow Voice is a non-party political village magazine. Bearing this in mind, the questions I asked were about Paul’s life and background so that residents here could get to know more about the man who is representing Barrow and Quorn at County Council level. The post lasts for four years.

Paul has always lived in Leicestershire and loves the county. He was born at Leicester General Hospital in 1967 and went to Broomfeld Primary School followed by Wreake Valley High School in Syston. He then began an apprenticeship with East Goscote Plumbers and worked for them before setting up, with a partner, a busy and successful plumbing company called Rudkin and Herbert. However, nowadays, to lighten the workload, he has scaled the business side of his life back to being self- employed and concentrating on working locally carrying out gas checks, installing boilers and wood burning stoves. Paul has lived in Quorn since 2000. He has a partner, who is a primary school teacher, adult twin sons and is a proud granddad.

So, he’s a businessman and a family man but the political side? How did Paul become involved in politics? Well, it seems that he’d been interested in politics for the last twenty years and was often critical of the way things were governed but had never done anything about it. This was to change. In 2021 Paul joined Reform and before the last local government election the party asked him if he would be interested in standing. He said he was. Then he went through a strict vetting system before being accepted as a candidate. To fight the election, he was given a campaign team of ten to help with leafletting and speaking to people. Five were from Barrow and five from Quorn. Paul said campaigning was extremely tiring. Each of them easily walked over 10,000 steps a day.  May 1st itself was hectic too as Paul had to cover four polling stations, two in Barrow and two in Quorn. But most exciting of all was the count in Loughborough as was it was so very close. Reform won by a mere 273 votes.

And now he’s a councillor. What have been his first impressions? The intensity of the work stands out above all other considerations, I learnt. Paul has been given a laptop solely for county council work and has had to complete many online training courses. He was assigned a mentor to help him as procedures have to be picked up quickly. County Council meetings in County Hall are videoed and broadcast so everyone in the chamber is aware they are being watched by a much wider audience. Paul has weekly meetings with his Reform party colleagues, if not in person, then online through Teams, and every two months all the Reform councillors meet in the chamber. All councillors sit on sub- committees and Paul is vice chair of the Employment Committee and a member of the Highways and Transport Committee as well as other bodies.

Being a councillor has led to some unexpected but very enjoyable visits. British Gypsum were quick to offer Paul a trip down their mine just outside Barrow, which he found absolutely fascinating, and Mountsorrel Quarry, too, have shown Paul around their site.

Paul is well aware that he has far more to learn about representing Barrow and Quorn but says that above all he cares deeply about local issues and wants to be judged in 2029 on what he has done. He hopes he will have made a significant difference.

Thank you, Paul, for giving Barrow Voice an interview, especially as I now know how much time and effort is involved in being a Leicestershire County Councillor.

Gaynor Barton