JUST a month after two Reform UK councillors on Cornwall Council left the party another has departed.

Cllr Jamie Hanlon, who was elected last May to represent the Penwithick and Boscoppa division in the St Austell area, will now sit on the council as an Independent.

It means the Reform UK group, which was elected as the largest political group at the local authority just over a year ago with 28 members is now down to 21, a loss of a quarter of its elected councillors.

Cllr Susanne Desmonde, who represents Pool and Tehidy, resigned from Reform UK last month to become an Independent councillor, just a day after the group’s deputy leader Cllr Roger Tarrant announced he’d left the party to become Cornwall Council’s first Restore Britain member.