A FORMER council boss has announced he will give up his seat in May.

Lib Dem Dominic Graham was first elected to Colchester Council in 2014 before becoming the authority’s waste boss in 2015.

A year later he announced controversial and divisive changes to the borough’s waste collection system which has seen thousands of homes given wheelie bins, with a three-sack limit placed upon the remaining homes.

As part of his plans, weekly bin collections were scrapped in to increase the amount of waste being recycled by residents - which now appears to be bearing fruit.

The 38-year-old stepped down from that role in April and has now announced he will not stand for re-election in Mile End in May.

The move is in a bid to spend more time with his family - a wife and three young children.

Solicitor Mr Graham said: “We have one child in school and another to start soon and I’ve had a glimpse of what time is required to keep a household running with three children.

“I don’t think I am going to have the time to do the job [being a councillor] that is required. I have looked at my diary into the new year and to be honest, it would be absolutely impossible to put the right amount of time into being a councillor.

“Once I realised that, it was an easy decision because family comes first.”

The Lib Dems will put forward David King, a well-known member of Myland Community Council, in May’s election.

Mr Graham: “I will miss it. I actually love the job but it’s a job someone else will be doing from May and I definitely haven’t been put off by the experience.

“I definitely wouldn’t rule out coming back into politics further down the line when things have calmed down a bit. I think if you’re going to do the job, especially as a cabinet member, the time required is just crazy, so you have to have that time.”

Mr Graham’s departure comes at a time when his party is facing a new Conservative leader in Darius Laws.

He said: “I have to say, with Darius, when he wasn’t a councillor I found him difficult.

“But since he was elected I can honestly say every time he asked a question of me regarding my portfolio, he always asks good, pertinent questions.

“What I will enjoy watching is how he changes the Conservative group, because he will change it.

“I will certainly keep an interest from afar - it would be difficult not to - but I’m pretty sure I won’t have a lot of free time.”

'Re-homing Syrians was my proudest moment' 

DOMINIC Graham says he has no regrets over spearheading controversial changes to the authority’s waste system. 

Fresh figures show the council’s unofficial recycling rate is more than 50 per cent for the first time - an increase from about 42 per cent last year. 

Mr Graham puts that down to residents buying into the waste changes, which were - and continue to be - strongly opposed by some councillors.

Mr Graham said: “From my time on the council, I know there are some excellent people and some less than excellent people and I had the great fortune to work with a lot of those excellent people.

“That was a really difficult time for me. There was a lot of criticism.

“Some of it was party political, some of it was personal, but I suppose you come to expect that and I was disappointed there wasn’t a serious debate around it.”

Mr Graham added: “But far and away my most proud moment is sitting around the cabinet table and agreeing to take as many Syrian refugees as we could.

“At the time they were the most vulnerable people in the world and, even though all I probably did was lend my voice and say ‘Yes’, I am incredibly proud of that and I think we were the first council in Essex to take in refugees.”