Tributes to former Rother chairman David Vereker - 'he did an enormous amount'

On Monday (July 31), Rother District Council paid tribute to David Vereker, a former chairman of the council who passed away at the age 92 on July 9th.

Mr Vereker had been Conservative councillor from 1999 to 2015, representing the now defunct Darwell ward. He served as the council’s chairman between 2004 and 2005.

Cllr Carl Maynard, leader of the council’s Conservative group, was among those to pay tribute. He said: “Not many in the chamber will remember David, but I can assure you, if you ever met David Vereker you would certainly know it because David was absolutely an individual.

“He was fiercely intelligent. He was very much, I think the polite way of saying it would be, old school, but I don’t think David wouldn’t necessarily want me to be polite because he delighted in being controversial, I might add, not at the expense of him doing the job well.”

He added: “In terms of being an ambassador for his local ward, he did an enormous amount and absolutely was fighting for every resident.

“Whilst David came from a very privileged background — those of who remember him will remember him as an old Etonian and someone who went to Cambridge — I can honestly say, without any threat of contradiction, that whether someone was of limited means or they were extremely wealthy he represented his ward constituents to the best of his ability regardless of their background.”