Café entrepreneur and independent town and district councillor Andy Maul is to contest a seat on Cambridgeshire County Council.

Cllr Maul – who runs Bygones café in Hill Street, Wisbech, – said he felt voters should always have a choice when it comes to local elections.

He remained committed to his belief that councils need not be about politics.

Cllr Maul will stand against sitting Conservative councillor Steve Tierney for the Wisbech seat that covers Waterlees, Clarkson and Medworth wards.

He said a priority would be to ensure Wisbech gets a fair share of funding, and of immediate concern is the state of local roads.

“People come to me frequently to raise concerns over the state of our roads – many of these roads are appalling,” he said.

“We have had some work done recently but a massive issue remains of there being a lot of a heavy-duty traffic through and ripping up roads that are not being repaired.”

Cllr Maul said he noticed the poor conditions of roads daily over the past year as his café switched to home delivery and he finds himself constantly using local roads.

“Only few months ago I was travelling along North End and had to pull over after I hit a pothole: it smashed my wheel to pieces.”

Cllr Maul said a reason for standing for a county seat was to ensure people had a choice and he felt that in his time as a town and district councillor he had built a good rapport with the community.

“In reality all I want is for whoever gets elected to do a good job,” he said. “I am quite comfortable doing it as an independent – you don’t need to be party political.”

And he is unlikely to become enthusiastic about using social media to argue his point of view.

“I don’t get involved in arguments on social media: there is very little point to it,” he said.

“And the other reason is that I haven’t got the time. At the end of the day if people want to talk to me, I am quite available.

“I have not got a gripe with anyone – I just keep my head down and get on with it.”

He is the second independent to announce his candidature for a county council seat in Wisbech – last week Simon ‘Spike’ Crowson revealed he would be standing in Wisbech East against the Conservative incumbent Samantha Hoy.