A PARISH council by-election candidate whose campaign policy was to attack the council has won the vote to join it.

John Moore, of Canterbury Road, Herne, received 721 votes in the head-to-head clash with Bryan Brown, of Bullockstone Road, who received 508 votes at the Herne and Broomfield council count.

The turnout was 20.23 per cent.

Victory for 49-year-old Mr Moore means he will now join the parish council of which he has long been a vehement opponent.

His canvassing campaign centred on attacking the parish council’s council tax precept rise of around 64 per cent. In the run-up to polling day, Mr Moore dropped 3,500 leaflets through parish letterboxes criticising the council’s spending plans.

Mr Moore, a businessman who runs local ad paper Daily Doings and Herne Bay sweet shop Sweet Magic, is expected to make his first official appearance as a parish councillor at the monthly meeting on Thursday which begins at 7.30pm in the Wootton Room of Herne Mill, in Mill Lane.