He has worked with some of the world’s top fashion photographers but Totnes Town Council’s newly elected councillor Tim Bennett is now focussed on making the town’s streets safer for pedestrians.

Cllr Bennett moved to the town from London six years ago with his wife Alice, where he become a stay-at-home dad to his two young sons aged three and six.

In London he worked as a retoucher of photographs with snappers David Bailey and Juergen Teller, artists Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, style-magazine The Face, and for Magnum Photos and the National Portrait Gallery.

He fell into the job after leaving school and applying for an ad as a lab technician, and discovered he had a knack for retouching.

“I have work hanging in pretty much every major photography gallery in the world,” he said

“I would spend half-an-hour working on something with someone, I’d earn my normal wage and they’d sell the print for £40,000 in an edition run for a gallery.

“It’s staggering to think “I did that.”

Cllr Bennett now runs his own retouching and freelance computer programming businesses from home.

He is passionate about creating safer streets and walking routes to schools and says it was while walking his eldest son to Grove School from their Smithfields home that he was spurred to stand for councillor.

They had reached the short stretch joining the High Street with the Bypass and were confronted with half-a-dozen vehicles parked on the pavement.

“I was fuming,” Cllr Bennett said.

“The fact that road is even open to traffic feels insane to me but the other day there were six vans parked on the pavement, which is only some 150 metres long.

“It forces kids to walk in the road. It’s just terrifying. I’ve seen so many near misses. We’ve got to do something about it.”

Cllr Bennett says he regularly “goes off on one” about road safety, so much so that friends urged him to join the council.

“I wrote to paragraphs to the mayor about the Plymouth Road parking incident and I thought “why am I doing this? I’ve just got to put my money where my mouth is, I know there’s a vacancy, I’ll put myself forward.”

He explained: “First and foremost, I’m a local parent who wants to see Totnes continue to be a safe, healthy, and inspirational environment for our children to grow up in. “Totnes has a wealth of community assets that were brought about by the hard work and vision of local people, all of which need guardianship to ensure their enjoyment by future generations, and I’m passionate about keeping this tradition of preserving our built and natural environment for community use alive. “I’m also a big believer in ‘Living Streets’ and I think the ongoing debate over the high street at times overshadows concerns that have a bigger impact on most of our daily lives; rat-runs, safer walking routes to schools, bad and dangerous parking, and a lack of seating for the less mobile all contribute to making Totnes’ streets more dangerous, polluted, and unwelcoming to pedestrian use.

“I would like to see residential streets that are for residents, not through traffic, and that parents can feel safe letting their children play out in.

“I’ve worn many hats over the years: 20+ years as a printer in the photographic industry, a 6th-form teacher, a middle manager in both the private and public sectors, a trade union rep, and a sole trader for two decades, I believe I can bring a young(ish!) and novel voice to the council that will strive to keep Totnes thriving economically and socially.

“I’m not affiliated with any political party, nor am I an idealogue with an agenda. I’m just a local citizen that believes in local democracy.”