FORMER Deal Town Council member and district councillor Brian Walker has died during a visit to Nottinghamshire. Mr Walker, a carpenter, of Duke Street, Deal, was 49 and was found dead in his van in the village of Wigsley.

It is believed he had been suffering from a heart complaint and died of natural causes. Mr Walker was an active member of the pressure group Friends of North Deal before standing for election as an independent in a Deal ward on the district council. He won the seat in May 1991 and was the lone independent councillor in a "hung council" made up of equal numbers of Tories and Labour members.

As a district councillor he served on the personnel, tourism and marketing, planning, land, finance and general purposes and planning committees. During his four-year term of office he was also the district council's appointee to Deal Maritime Museum, the Mary Hougham Almshouses Charity and Kent County Playing Fields Association.