Tories reveal two candidates bidding to be next Police and Crime Commissioner in Northamptonshire

When current Northamptonshire Police Commissioner Adam Simmonds announced he would not fight re-election in 2016 over summer, it left the door open for another Conservative candidate to take his place.

Tory party members will choose from one of two finalists to run in Mr Simmonds place at an event at the Conservative Club on Billing Road on Saturday, November 20.

The men vying for the place and a shot at the £65,000-a-year job in 2016, Northamptonshire County Council Councillor Andre Gonzalez De Savage and current South Northants Councillor Stephen Mould, will each make a five-minute presentation to more than 100 party members, before facing a series of questions from a moderator.

Afterwards, Northamptonshire party members will vote for the candidate of their choice, with the winner announced at around 4pm.

Area chairman for the Northamptonshire Conservative Group, Michael Clarke, said he believed the two candidates represent the parties best possible chance for retaining the commissioner position in the county.

“That’s what the whole selection process is about,” he said. “It is about putting the candidates through their paces and throwing them some curve balls.

“They are both councillors already and they are both battle proven.”

Councillor Mold, who was elected to the Old Stratford ward on South Northants Council in May, describes himself as a European sales and marketing director of a US software company and fought in the 2010 parliamentary election for Derby North.

He lost by 613 votes, in a seat that had been held by Labour since 1997.

Councillor Gonzalez De Savage, a father-of-three, who worked with Adam Simmonds to announce plans to “integrate” police and fire services in 2013, also claims to have “worked closely with the economic development, tourism and cultural responsibilities of the county”, during his time at the county council.

He was elected to the East Hunsbury ward in 2004.

Anyone hoping to cast their vote on Saturday will have had to have been a member of the Conservative party for three months or more.