Cllr Williams is Chair of the Parish Council. He represents the Council on the C5 Cheltenham Parish Councils group and the Cheltenham Youth Work project.

About me

Unusually, as Chair of the Parish Council, I don't actually live in Charlton Kings! My family moved to Gloucestershire from Derbyshire in 1999 and we set up home in Charlton Kings. I 'retired' in 2010, after 40 years' service in Natural England and its predecessor organisations as the government's advisors on Nature Conservation, where I worked on land management research, conservation advice to landowners and engagement with regional partners. Looking forward to a blissful life actually enjoying the countryside I had helped to protect and shape, I was approached to join the Parish Council and it seemed like a good idea at the time; although I must say that it has continued to feel that way over the last ten years! My initial passion was to improve our allotment stock that had been passed to us, in a poor condition, in 2002 and to build up better facilities for our 200 tenants (now 250). I liked (most of) the people I was working with and in partnership with our then Chairman we felt that this could be a local organisation that could really work for us all. In my time, I have chaired every committee, cleared every pile of allotment rubbish and written more policies than anyone should reasonably be expected to read and finally serve as Chair of your Parish Council since the elections in May 2018. Our family moved to Prestbury in 2017, but the '3-mile rule' allows me to continue to be a Parish Councillor in Charlton Kings.

Why I became a councillor

The honest answer is that I was asked to by someone I respected, and I had the time and opportunity to engage, as a Councillor, with something new - a Local Authority! I had little idea of what a Parish Council could achieve and for the first two years I felt that such an important organisation had a lot more to offer.. Theodore Roosevelt said that "Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty…" and my journey with the Council has borne that out! The plus side is that anyone who volunteers to be a Councillor and to freely give their time, knowledge, and skills, generally must be worth knowing and we now have a truly wonderful group of Councillors who it is a privilege to work with. We also have terrific staff, sound ideas and a drive to deliver, so that's one important element of what still gets me up in the morning.