Biography

Brian Smedley is a Town Councillor for the Bridgwater Westover Ward and County Unitary Councillor for Bridgwater South. He is currently the Leader of Bridgwater Town Council .

Elected in 1990 in a By-Election fought at the height of the Poll Tax campaign he has been a councillor ever since, first for the Victoria Ward (1990-1996) then for the Hamp Ward (1996-2011) and now for the Westover ward (2011-) where he currently lives.

His musical history dates back to the Bridgwater punk rock scene in 1977 and the band the Dangerous Brothers, for which he was the principle song writer, he went on to found the Sheep Worrying organisation which produced an alternative magazine, of which he was the editor and ran a theatre company, for which he wrote, directed and acted in numerous plays and musicals during the 1980′s.

It was during this period that he discovered Bridgwater’s historical links with Czechoslovakia through the Vernon Bartlett election of 1938, about which he wrote a book, a play and a web site www.vernonbartlett.co.uk. In 1989 his daughter Cathy was born on the night of the Velvet Revolution .

In 1991 he formed the Bridgwater Czech-Slovak Friendship Society which led in 2002 to the creation of Bridgwater International.

Brian is  a member of Bridgwater Trades Union Council and vice chair of his UNITE Union branch. He is a long time supporter of the Bridgwater Arts Centre.

From 1995-1999 he was part of the Labour-Liberal coalition that briefly ran Sedgemoor and chaired the Arts group and the Youth group.

On Sedgemoor District Council he was the Chairman of the Corporate Scrutiny Committee and the Leader of the opposition until it was abolished.

Brian and Kathy were elected for the new Somerset Unitary Council for the BRIDGWATER SOUTH ward which includes Westover and Hamp in 2022. Brian is the Secretary of the County Labour group and serves on the County Corporate Scrutiny Committee, the Licensing Panel and the North area planning committee. He is the Vice Chair of the Standards Committee.

Other links

Sheep Worrying

The 1990 Election