A councillor has refuted claims he resigned from his party because of fears he was to be deselected.

Martin Brooks, who has served as a Liberal Democrat councillor for Leavesden since 2014, resigned from the party on Wednesday afternoon for "personal reasons".

He will serve as an Independent councillor until the election on May 3, where he will stand again.

Leader of Three Rivers council, Sara Bedford believes that Cllr Brooks was left in "no doubt" that he would not be selected to re-run for the party in Leavesden after a meeting on March 18 with three senior Lib Dems, and those were the reasons for his resignation.

However, in a statement, Cllr Brooks said he had resigned from the national, Three Rivers, and east of England regional Lib Dem parties because he could no longer be part of an organisation after its leader Vince Cable was quoted at his party's spring conference earlier this month: "Too many (referring to those who voted to leave the EU) were driven by a nostalgia for a world where passports were blue, faces were white, and the map was coloured imperial pink".

Mr Brooks said that recent events at a national level has made it "impossible for him to continue as a member of the Liberal Democrat party at any level".

In May 2017, Cllr Brooks terminated his membership with the Liberal Democrat party before u-turning on his decision.

He maintains that the meeting on March 18 had no bearing on his decision to quit the party and he at no stage thought the outcome of the meeting would lead to him being deselected.

Mr Brooks, who moved to Three Rivers from the USA in 2006, has served as Lib Dem district councillor in Leavesden since he was elected in 2014.

His resignation means that the Lib Dems has lost its majority at Three Rivers District Council, after Alison Wall recently defected to the Conservatives.

Three Rivers Conservative group leader Alex Hayward believes this represents an opportunity for her party to "take overall control" of Three Rivers Council while Labour group leader Steve Cox said the Lib Dems were "dropping likes flies".

Cllr Brooks added said: "I truly believe that the people of Leavesden need and deserve a dedicated, experienced, well-informed representative on the council.

“My track record of working for the resident of Leavesden is well known and I hope that they will allow me to continue to represent them by being independent, thinking independent and voting independent."