Cllr Nick Leverton is the managing director of Mobility One,
specialising in supplying vehicles for the disabled. Self-deprecating,
blunt and pleasingly quotable, he is also “surprisingly” (his word) the
Deputy Mayor of Carterton. He sat down with Sam Bennett to talk
about the EU, housing and Mayor Lynn Little.
Nick Leverton was fresh from Carterton’s
ICE Centre for young people with
learning difficulties when I met him.
It was two weeks before the EU
referendum and he’d been discussing it
with ICE’s members.
The Deputy Mayor was neither firmly for
staying or leaving the EU at this point,
but claimed over the buzz of Barista’s
wide screen that he would hate it if we
left just because of the immigration issue.
“We could revert to what was a very bad
time in this country in the late sixties and
early seventies where racism was alive
and well,” he states before noting the
progress he believes has been made in
terms of stamping out such prejudice. “I’d
hate to see it go backwards,” he tells me.
There was so little time before I had to
walk through the doors of West Oxford
Community Centre to cast my vote. I
had no idea which box I was going to
cross. An abundance of figures, opinions,
predictions and polls had created
something too confusing for me to
digest – everything seemed blurred.
“I don’t think we’ve had a lot of good
information at the moment,” he says.
“Misinformation is no information.”
He talks me through his approach to the
ICE session. “I listened to them first and
just let the conversation come up. I was
then asked to give my opinion. It was
easy for me, they set the pace not me. I
talked with them and not at them. There
can be an assumption that the young
adults of today don’t have a care about
politics. The young adults at the centre
all eligible to vote were very aware of
the need to get facts, be informed and
discuss areas they were unsure of. They
all had valid opinions and concerns and
where I could I tried to allay fears and
clarify grey areas in the recent media
coverage. I knew an awful lot of the
members beforehand because my wife
used to work at the school where most of
them went. It was very easy for me to go
in there for my first public engagement,
a free cup of coffee, lots of laughs and
some searching questions and well
thought out and strong opinions on the
subject of the in-out referendum.”
The topic of assumptions remains
present as we speak about Nick and
his role as a councillor. “The number of
assumptions made about councillors, the
biggest one being that we get paid, is
what causes scurrilous unrest,” he says.
“We are 16 volunteers on the council.
We don’t get paid for anything.”
First voted in as Councillor a year ago
and then recently as Deputy Mayor for
the upcoming year, this self-confessed
Rottweiler lookalike once sat on the
fundraising committee for St Johns
Church in Carterton and did a stint as
chairman of Carterton Town Football Club.
“It needed some financial acumen,” he
says of CTFC. “I have strong commercial
management experience and it’s a big
business and it was a great experience
for me to get my teeth into. The biggest
and nicest surprise was how many great
people helped the club out at what
was a difficult and challenging time for
it. One thing I have learned after living
here for over 40 years is that Carterton
people stand up and get counted when
it matters.”
Meet the Deputy
8
